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CHAPTER FOUR

HEIRS TO THE CLASSICS

It is curious that the revival of interest in an ‘anthropology of knowledge’ should have

adopted as the emblem and device of consciousness the notion of classification. There is

no doubt that in much of our thinking the notion is indispensable, but this gives us no

license to raise it as an epistemological standard. (...) (C)lassification is neither

necessarily universal nor, where it is a demonstrable form in a given culture it is

necessarily of any great moment for an an ‘anthropology of knowledge’.

David Reason, Classification, Time and the Organization of Production, 221

(A)nthropological representations of cultural knowledge may really only betray the

articulateness which academics feel knowledge should manifest.

Malcolm R. Crick, Anthropology of Knowledge, 295

In the previous chapters it has been argued that the early sociology of scientific knowledge can be

conceived either as a project for socializing epistemology or as a project for radicalizing classical

sociology of knowledge. From both vantage-points an appeal was made to anthropology. We

have argued that the early sociology of scientific knowledge used the image of ‘the classical

anthropologist’ mainly for strategic-rhetorical reasons during its struggle for academic

recognition. However, this was only part of the story. An appeal was also made to a specific

anthropological approach, viz. that of Durkheim-Mauss. There were two main reasons for this

choice. First, the Durkheim-Mauss approach allowed sociology of scientific knowledge to justify

itself by proving that knowledge generally has “an inalienable social dimension” (Barnes 1984:

185). Second, it allowed sociology to realize the promises of classical sociology of knowledge by

(a) restoring its perspective as a sociology of culture and (b) by conceiving culture in terms of knowledge.

Durkheim and Mauss have emphasized the central role of classification in all human

knowledge (Oldroyd 1986: 146). So the basic question of this chapter will be whether an account

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of classification (or of concept-application as is the early sociology of scientific knowledge called it) is

of great significance for an anthropology of science (Reason 1979: 221)? My claim is that it is

not. However, first I will say a few more words on the character of the kind of project that

sociology of scientific knowledge engaged in.

By and large it has been taken for granted that ‘classical sociology of knowledge’ was

nothing but just another sub-discipline within the domain of sociology. Fashionable though

this view might be, it is mistaken nonetheless (Zijderveld 1974). What Scheler, Weber,

Mannheim, Durkheim and the other patriarchs of sociology of knowledge had in mind was not a

further sub-division of sociology. They aimed at exploring a new perspective from which (a)

sociology could be developed as a science of culture and (b) culture could be conceived of in terms

of knowledge (Zijderveld 1974: 11-17; Van Rossum 1988, chapter 2). Although the patriarchs

themselves may not have been fully aware of this, the implication of their endeavour was that

sociology's core problems would have to be re-conceptualized in terms of knowledge. That is to say,

their point of view obliged them to re-conceptualize the central problem of social order in terms

of – to borrow Goodenough's (1957: 167) classical formulation – “whatever it is one has to

know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members”.1 Unfortunately, this

obligation has never been met systematically in their work. Strongly influenced by the

dominant organizational approach, they kept giving conceptual priority to 'social structure,'

which was supposed somehow to 'determine' forms of knowledge. It was only from the 1970’s

onwards that these obligations of classical sociology of knowledge were taken up by the vanguard

of the sociology of scientific knowledge. This is to say that for these sociologists the concern with

the sociology of scientific knowledge represented but the firts phase of a more embracing endeavour.

Not only did they claim to be the heirs to the subject that used to be called philosophy. They

claimed to be the heir of classical sociology of knowledge as well. In chapter 2, we have seen that

the sociologists challenged philosophy in order to make their discipline’s status secure. In the

present chapter, we will see that, this job being done, the heritage of the classical sociologists of

1 Goodenough, of course, aimed at defining the object of cognitive anthropology (then called ‘ethnoscience’), not of

sociology of knowledge. Both endeavours, however, had a common aim, viz. reconstituting their respective discipline

as a science of culture by conceiving culture in terms of the knowledge possessed by its members. Goodenough

succeeded in formulating the gist of this project much more succinctly than the patriarchs of the sociology of

knowledge.

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knowledge was to be restored next. In the first place, by rebuilding sociology of knowledge as a

sociology of culture and subsequently by re-conceptualizing culture in terms of knowledge. This,

then, was the main aim of the champions of the early sociology of scientific knowledge:

revitalizing the nearly defunct project of classical sociology of knowledge and completing it by

implementing and elaborating the innovations which the patriarchs themselves had left mainly

implicit.

When this perspective on the sociology of scientific knowledge is added to the

description given in the former chapters, the early sociological studies of scientific knowledge can

be said to have performed two functions simultaneously:

1. They were to secure sociology’s status as a fully general approach.

2. They were to show that social order and cognitive order are two sides of the same coin

(Collins 1985: 5).2

The structure of this chapter is as follows:

In section 1, I briefly outline the sociological context in which the early sociology of

scientific knowledge developed.

In section 2, I discuss why the sociologists were interested in the two main traditions in

classical sociology of knowledge, viz. the German and the French one. As the interest for the

German tradition can easily be explained from the factors described in chapter 2, the emphasis in

this section will be on the French tradition, initiated by Durkheim and Mauss. I examine the way

in which this approach allowed the sociologists to restore the cultural perspective of sociology of

knowledge and to conceive culture in terms of knowledge.

In section 3, which has the status of a Fieldnote, I examine how the Durkheim-tradition

conceives knowledge. Subsequently, I answer the question whether this conception of knowledge is

of any use in establishing an anthropology of science.

2 This relationship between the early sociology of scientific knowledge and classical sociology of knowledge has not

been given due attention by those critics who have argued that only in the recent work of Latour the sociology of

scientific knowledge has made an important tum towards social and political theory (see. Pets 1993).

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1. TWO TRADITIONS IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE

It would be inaccurate to conceive classical sociology of knowledge as one coherent

research program. From its very beginnings, sociology of knowledge has been an extensive

family and there is truth in Berger and Luckmann’s (1984: 16) one-liner that its history can

almost be described as the history of its various definitions. It will not be necessary here to

go into this variety very deep here, though. For our purpose it is sufficient to make a broad

distinction between a French and a German tradition.

1.1 Kant and Hegel standing on their head

The French tradition focuses mainly on categories of thought; the German tradition on specific

sets of ideas. Behind this superficial difference in focus of interest, however, there lie substantially

different assumptions, which make it difficult to plot both trends on one line. The German

tradition is commonly referred to as Wissenssoziologie, the French as sociologie de la connaissance. As

these labels indicate, sociologie de la connaissance is primarily concerned with everyday knowledge (see

e.g. Douglas, ed., 1973) or ‘folk knowledge’, while Wissenssoziologie primarily focuses on the formal

thought of ‘thinkers’, which has made the latter approach into “a sort of sociological gloss on the

history of ideas” (Berger and Luckmann 1983: 16).3 The subsequent development of both

traditions, obviously, is marked by these preferences.

At the level of underlying presuppositions, the difference between both trends boil

down to a dissimilarity in philosophical inspiration. The main philosophical influences on

German Wissenssoziologie came from historicism and Marxism. This is to say that Wissenssoziologie is

heir to two movements which, each in their own way, grappled with Hegelian idealism. The

historicist emphasis on the inevitable historicity of human thought and its insistence that

historical phenomena be understood in their own terms, could easily be translated into an

emphasis on the social setting of thought (Berger and Luckmann 1983:19). Taking its cue from

Marx, Wissenssoziologie tried very hard ‘to stand Hegel on his head’. In practice this amounted to

3 The German name goes back to Scheler's essay Probleme einer Soziologie des Wissens (1924). In the further development

of Wissenssoziologie, Scheler does not play an important part. (See Berger and Luckmann 1984: 19-20). The French

variety received its name from Durkheim. In 1910, when he dedicated a new section of L'Annee Sociologique to the

sociology of knowledge, he named it Conditions Sociologiques de la Connaissance. The occasion was Durkheim's review of

Jerusalem's paper 'Soziologie des Erkennens' in L'Annee Sociologique, XI (1910), 41-42. (See Durkheim 1980: 107-110.)

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sociologists of knowledge trying to expose ’the autonomy of ideas’ as a fiction, by relating

systems of thought to their social settings4

French sociologie de la connaissance can rightly be described as a socialization of Kantian

epistemology. At first sight this may seem an odd description, as Kant had placed the a priori

structure of human thought completely outside the empirical domain, thereby reserving the

competence to make authoritative pronouncements on this issue for the professional

philosopher. However, in the 19th century psychology, when sociology and anthropology

broke away from philosophy and tried to create a distinct profile for themselves in relation to

philosophy and to each other, problems which were traditionally reserved for philosophy were

re-conceptualized as empirical problems (Hacking 1975; Bloor 1983: 206, note 39).

In French sociology of knowledge, the a priori element in received epistemology was re-

conceptualized in sociological terms. In his attempts to establish sociology as an independent

discipline, Durkheim was very keen to remove sociology from “a philosophical tutelage that

could only prevent it from constituting itself as a positive science” (cited in Lukes 1975: 408).

Durkheim went even further by turning the tables on philosophy. Sociology, he said, could help

to rethink persistent philosophical problems – like the problem of the Kantian categories – in a

more productive way, by reformulating them at an empirical level. By studying these old

questions as empirical problems, Durkheim argued:

(sociology) is destined (...) to furnish to philosophy, the bases which are indispensable

to it and which it currently lacks. One can even say that sociological reflexion needs to

extend itself naturally and spontaneously in the form of philosophical reflexion (cited in

Lukes 1975: 408-9).

So Schwartz (1981: 11) is right in saying that “(t)he French tradition in the sociology of

knowledge is part of an attempt to save empiricism by standing Kant on his head”.

4 The crucial point on which Marx and Mannheim differed from each other in this respect has to do with whether,

given the social conditioning of knowledge, a privileged position can be found from which the social world can be

described objectively. Marx claims to have found such a position in a scientific analysis of history. For Mannheim,

the historical and social setting of the sociologist of knowledge implies the inevitability of his perspective being

partial and Standortgebunden. However, Mannheim takes this social setting as an enabling constraint in that is allows us

to understand history. “In Mannheim's approach, the productivity of social participation as a source of knowledge

plays a more important role than the limitations which participation in the social process puts upon knowledge”

(Kecskemeti 1952: 1; see also Mannheim 1952: 103ff).

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Durkheim, however, did implement this program only partially. He applied his views only

to non-Western societies and did not develop a sociology of Western categories of thought – let

alone of scientific thought. Durkheim valued Western thought – especially the way in which it has

found expression in science – as the most advanced stage of the evolution of human thinking.

Therefore he took science, at least in the present stage of evolution, to be beyond the reach of

scientific reflection (Hesse 1988: 99-100; see also Bloor 1983: 3 and Douglas 1975: xx).5

Ironically, the restraints put on sociology of knowledge by Durkheim and Mauss

increased the chances of survival for this particular approach in anthropology (Schwartz 1981,

chapter 2). In this discipline, it was to play an important part in preparing the way for

functionalist and structuralist approaches (Bertels 1973: 228). For Mannheimian Wissenssoziologie,

however, the chances were different. During the 1930’s and 1940’s, the intellectual climate in the

West was not very favourable for the particular type of relativism it entailed. As long as relativism

was contained safely within the disciplinary boundaries of cultural anthropology, it was not

considered to be too much of a problem. But as soon as it affected the foundations of science,

things were different, because science was supposed to be a main bulwark against the forces of

irrationalism that threatened to overrun the West at that time (Phillips 1974: 75).6 So after

Mannheim, Wissenssoziologie and the cultural perspective entailed by it were more and more

abandoned in mainstream sociology. It was only in the late sixties/early seventies that this

tradition was to come to life again in the sociology of scientific knowledge.

II. THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL ORDER

The sociologists of scientific knowledge were interested in the different traditions in classical

sociology of knowledge for different reasons. The Mannheim tradition was important for them

because it was concerned with revealing “the hitherto concealed dependence of thought on group

5 Mary Douglas (1975: xx) reproaches Durkheim for this. “(I)nstead of showing us the social structuring of our minds, he showed us the minds of feathered Indians and painted aborigines. With unforgivable optimism he declared that his discoveries applied to them only. He taught that we have a more genial destiny. For this mistake our knowledge of ourselves has been delayed by half a century”. 6 In 1938 Merton wrote: "It is of considerable interest that totalitarian theorists have adopted the radical relativistic doctrines of Wissenssoziologte as a political expedient for discrediting 'liberal' or 'bourgeois' or 'non-Aryan' science" (In Merton 1973: 260, note 20). See also Popper's remark (The open Society and its Enemies II:393): "The time at which this book was written may perhaps explain my optimistic assumption ... that the stark realities of the war would show up the playthings of the intellectuals, such as relativism, as what they were, and that this verbal spook would disappear.• After the war, this fear for relativism has remained a permanent feature of Western academic climate (see the references in Barnes and Bloor 1982: 20), although relativism gradually has gained much ground.

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existence and its rootedness in action” (Mannheim 1936: 4). By extending the scope of this

approach to include all forms of knowledge , the dependence of scientific thought on group

existence and its rootedness in action could be made visible. That is to say that the – radicalized –

Mannheim-tradition provided the sociologists with the material with which a socialized

epistemology could be built. As I have discussed this issue at length in chapter 2, I will leave the

Mannheim-tradition at that for the moment and concentrate here on its French counterpart. Why

were the sociologists interested in the Durkheim-tradition? As I see it, this tradition has gained in

importance as the sociologists went along, since its full possibilities only became clear in the

course of its application. First it had a strategic value because it allowed the sociologists to prove

that knowledge generally (including scientific knowledge) has an “inalienable social dimension”

(Barnes 1984: 185). This, however, concerned only the first, emancipatory part of their project:

securing sociology’s status as a fully general approach. Here the Durkheim-tradition was but a

supplement to the Mannheim-tradition. The Durkheim-tradition, however, offered also a solution

for the remaining objectives, viz. restoring the perspective of a sociology of culture and conceiving

culture in terms of knowledge.

2.1

I will examine the following questions:

1. How did the Durkheim-tradition allow the sociologists to prove that knowledge

generally has an “inalienable social dimension?”

2. How did the Durkheim-tradition allow them to restore the cultural perspective and to

conceive of culture in terms of knowledge?

3. How does the Durkheim-tradition conceive of knowledge, and is this conception of any

use in establishing an anthropology of science?

Kant socialized

Durkheim advanced his sociology of knowledge mainly in two publications: De quelques Formes

Primitives de Classification: Contribution a l'Etude des Réprésentations Collectives (1903; written with

Marcel Mauss) and Les Formes Elémentaires de la Vie Religieuse: Le Systeme Totémique en Australie

(1912).7 Like Kant, Durkheim aimed at synthesizing the two main rival philosophies of

7 I will refer to the English translation of both works: (a) Primitive Classification. Translated and edited with

Introduction by Rodney Needham. London: Cohen and West (1963) and (b) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life:

A Study in Religious Sociology. Translated by J.W. Swain. London: Allen and Unwin (1915).

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knowledge, viz. (a) empiricism, which takes “the categories of the understanding” to be anchored in

experience (Durkheim 1915: 9), and (b) apriorism, which considers them to derive from the

human mind (Durkheim and Mauss 1963: 13).8 A social theory of knowledge, says Durkheim

(1915: 9)...

... seems destined to unite the opposing advantages of the two rival theories,

without incurring their inconveniences . (...) It leaves the reason its specific

power, but it accounts for it and does so without leaving the world of observing

phenomena.

He aimed to bring about this synthesis by showing that “the categories of the understanding” are

“essentially collective representations” deriving from the way society is organized (1915: 15-16;

emphasis added). That is to say, he took the capacity to classify nature – which the psychologists

of his day held to be an intrinsic property of the human mind – to be related to something which

is external to the individual.

Far from being able to say that men classify quite naturally by a sort of necessity of

their individual understandings, we must on the contrary ask ourselves what could

have led them to arrange their ideas in this way and where they could have found the

plan of this remarkable disposition (Durkheim and Mauss 1963: 9).

In De quelques Formes Primitives de Classification, Durkheim and Mauss focused exclusively on

classification. In Les Formes Elémentaires, Durkheim extended his inquiry to the categories of

thought (time, space, force, causality, etc.) which -in his view- are based on it. The main thesis of

the Formes Primitives is that "the classification of things reproduces (the) classification of men"

(1963: 11). According to David Bloor (1982: 267), Durkheim and Mauss have captured in this

formula “one of the central propositions of the sociology of knowledge”. What does this central

proposition boil down to? Basically it says two things.

1. Men think of the world in terms of their society.9

8 By 'categories of understanding ' Durkheim means “a certain number of essential ideas which dominate all our intellectual life (..): ideas of time, space, class, number, cause, substance, personality, etc. (..) They are like the solid

frame which encloses all thought” (Durkheim 1915: 9).

9 Durkheim and Mauss are anything but clear about what their claim that classification of things reproduces the

classification of men exactly amounts to. Merton (1973:31) says that the word ‘reproduce’ suggests a naive

‘reflection’ or ‘projection’ theory. Even so it still remains unclear how this ‘reproducing’ is supposed to come about.

Durkheirn is so keen to establish sociology as an autonomous discipline that he does not allow terms in his theory

which he could relate to psychological operations (Merton 1973:32). As we will see below, Bloor (1982) has tried to

solve this problem by suggesting a more productive meaning of ‘reproduction’.

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It was because men were grouped, and thought of themselves in the form of groups,

that in their ideas they grouped other things ... (That is why) (t)he first logical categories

were social categories; the first classes of things were classes of men, into which these

things were integrated (Durkhaim and Mauss 1963: 82).

2. Social differentiation not only allows for the differentiation of nature but also for a

sense of a certain relationship among its parts.

It is because human groups fit into another – the sub-clan into the clan, the clan into

the moiety, the moiety into the tribe – that groups of things are ordered in the same

way.( ..). And if the totality of things is conceived as a single system, this is because

society itself is seen in the same way. (...) Thus logical hierarchy is only another aspect

of social hierarchy, and the unity of knowledge is nothing else than the very unity of the

collective, extended to the universe. (...) Logical relations are thus, in a sense, domestic

relations (1963: 83-84).

In order to understand why the Durkheim-tradition (a) allowed the sociologists of scientific

knowledge to prove that knowledge generally has an ‘inalienable social dimension’ and (b) to

conceive of social order in terms of knowledge, it is important that the spirit of the Durkheim-

Mauss argument be grasped well. Earlier, I have indicated that in the relevant literature, the

collective nature of the sociological conception of knowledge has been the source of many

misunderstandings. A case in point is the criticism that the Durkheim-Mauss argument is

question-begging because its explanation of the categories presupposes the competence that it

pretends to explain (Dennes 1924; Rodney Needham 1963: xxvi -xxix). What these critics refer

to is a competence of the individual. Durkheim and Mauss, however, are at pains to emphasize

throughout that what they are talking about is not a faculty of the individual mind (1963: 4).10

Durkheim and Mauss do not deny that the individual has a certain innate capacity to order the

world. But they assert that the ordering of the world at this individual level is only very tentative

and unstable. The individual were he completely left to himself, would lack a tool which allows

him to stabilize the fuzzy phenomena 'out there' which confuse his senses.

10 In The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim (1964: 103-4) wrote: "”S)ociety is not the mere sum of individuals.

Rather, the system formed by their association, represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics. (…)

Individual minds, forming groups by mingling and fusing, give birth to a being, psychological if you will, but

constituting a psychic individuality of a new sort. It is, then, in the nature of this collective individuality, not in that of the

associated units, that we must seek the immediate and determining causes of the facts appearing therein (emphasis

added).

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Consciousness at this point is only a continuous flow of representations which are lost

one in another, and when distinctions begin to appear they are quite fragmentary. ... It

is obvious what a great difference there is between these rudi­ mentary distinctions

and groupings and what truly constitutes a classification" (1963: 7).

Durkheim (1915: 16) has tried to capture the core of his view on the relation between individual

and society in his slogan that man is a ‘double creature’.

There are two beings in him: an individual being which has its foundation in the

organism ... and a social being which represents the highest reality in the intellectual

and moral order that we can know by observation – I mean society.

In this view, Durkheim postulates a symbiotic relation between man and society. In order to

think or to act properly, the human organism needs categories to create a world from the ‘chaos

out there’. These categories are provided by society. For its existence, society, on its turn, is

dependent on “a satisfactory moral conformity” as well as “a minimum of logical conformity” of

its members (1915: 17). In Durkheim's view the problem why people actually do conform is really

not too much of a problem. The knowledge that society transmits to its members is not just

knowledge. It is just knowledge. Society, says Durkheim (quoted in Lukes 1973: 416), “has all that

is necessary for the transference to certain rules of that very imperative character which is

distinctive of moral obligation”.

2.2 A museum piece?

David Bloor, who in his (1982) advocated a reassessment of the Durkheim­Mauss thesis, was

very well aware of the barrage of criticism that had been provoked by the Durkheim-Mauss thesis

on empirical, theoretical as well as on logical grounds (Bloor 1982: 268-269; for his discussion of

these criticisms see pp. 291-296). He even added one of his own, viz. that although classification

plays a crucial part in Durkheim’s sociology of knowledge, Durkheim never provides a general

model of the classificatory process, so that the precise meaning of his proposal remains unclear

(1982: 268-269). Nevertheless, Bloor thinks the Durkheim-Mauss thesis can be reconstituted on a

‘reformed’ theoretical base, if it is connected to a proper model of classification. Bloor suggests

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that the network model developed by Mary Hesse (1974, chapters 1 and 2) will suit this

purpose fine.11 What made Hesse’s work interesting for the early sociology of scientific

knowledge?

First, Hesse's view of language as a network of concepts broke down the distinction

between observational language and theoretical language, so dear to the philosophers of science

with a logical-positivist bent.

All the symbols which function in the language of science do so in interconnection

with other symbols and so none is anchored in the world of fact alone. In this sense

all observation tems have what may be called a theoretical component; though

‘theoretical’ here means ‘systematic’ rather than ‘speculative’ (Bloor 1974: 384).

The sociologists concluded from this that because “there can be no solution to theoretical

disputes in science by a retreat to an unproblematical core of pure reports of experience" ( ibid :

385), theoretical disputes will eventually be decided by social factors.

Second, Hesse was interesting for the sociologists because she was an ‘accessible’

philosopher of science, as she ignored the view – popular among her colleagues – that conceptual

analyses and empirical investigations belong to incompatible analytical levels. Going beyond the

existing orthodoxy, Hesse went back to an earlier tradition in empiricism by connecting her

analysis of language to empirically fertile speculations about the human mind and about human

learning in general (Barnes 1976: 115; Bloor 1974: 395). From this, one could draw the

conclusion that Hesse’s essay belongs to the tradition in which – to borrow Quine's (1969)

phrase – epistemology is ‘naturalized’. Such a conclusion, however, would be another example of

the “muddle between social and individual accomplishments”, as Quinean epistemology is

essentially individualist (Hesse 1988: 98):

In spite of the fact that much is made of the importance of language as the chief agent

of categorization, that is, as the theoretical framework within which instrumental coping with the

natural world is organized, language is not conceived as a social institution (...) It is an

accidental accompaniment of human interaction with the natural world (emphasis

added; I will discuss the italicized sentence below).

Hesse’s argument is about the inherently social character of categorization, which is insufficiently

captured in a naturalized epistemology a la Quine. This ‘inherently social character’ is based on

11 Hesse originally advanced her model as part of an analysis of scientific inference. From the first day of its

publication, however, her book on scientific inference has been hailed by sociologists as a message with much wider

implications, especially for the sociology of knowledge (see Bloor 1974; Barnes 1976).

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the fact that the organization of a classificatory system is not determined by the way the world is

(Bloor 1982: 269).

2.2.1 Natural languages are metaphorical

In a number of publications Hesse (1966; 1974; 1980; 1986; 1990) has explained the inherently

social character of categorization, by arguing that all natural languages are metaphorical. Just like

the Durkheim-Mauss thesis, Hesse’s explanation is based on the assumption that language is

primarily a tool with which humans order the world conceptually. Suppose that there exists a

language in which there was a word or sound for every particular shade of the ‘kaleidoscopic flux

of impressions’ of the world. As the set consisting of these shades is infinite in principle, this

would imply that the number of words or sounds in this language be infinite too. As the capacity

of our brain is finite, clearly, we would never be able to learn such a language. Consequently, the

full richness of experience is cannot be rendered into language (Hesse 1974: 13). Every feasible

natural language can only contain a restricted number of words. The implication is that quite a

few ‘fluxes of impressions’ have to be taken together on certain grounds. But on what grounds?

Logically there are several alternatives:

1. Ordering of ‘fluxes of impressions’ is based on a structure that is inherent in the world

itself.

2. Ordering is based on the structuring activity of the human cognitive apparatus.

Whether this ordering coincides with a structure that is inherent in the world itself, is

something we do not know.

The problem that emerges in both cases is: How should the empirically observable disparities

between the classification systems of different societies be explained? This problem does not

occur in Hesse’s position. Hesse does not deny the possibility that the similarities and differences

in the ‘fluxes of impressions’ that make us speak of ‘objects’ and ‘states of affairs’ are inherent in

the world itself. Neither does she deny that the human cognitive apparatus functions in a specific,

physiologically embedded way. But just like Durkheim-Mauss assumed a great difference between

the ‘rudimentary distinctions and groupings’ which people make naturally on the one hand, and

‘what truly constitutes a classification’ on the other, Hesse (1974: 13) assumes a great difference

between what she calls a “primary process of recognition of similarities and differences” and

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what truly constitutes a conceptual network.12 This "primary process" is a product of the human

innate propensities for groping and grasping the environment. From the point of view of the

individual language learner, however, this initial verbal classification of experience - which already

simplifies the intuitive known complexity of the world -has to be subjected to further restraints,

which are not ‘given’ in the world, but which are passed on by the competent members of her

community. Hesse (1974: 48-54) describes these further restraints in terms of ‘correspondence’

and ‘coherence’; terms that have been the cause of some misunderstanding (see Lukes 1982a and

Hesse 1982). As I understand it, the ‘correspondence postulate’ is to emphasize that the

looseness of fit between language and the world is just that: a looseness of fit, not an absence of fit.13

As David Bloor (1982: 278) put it:

Classificatory decisions are made with reference to the world and in the light of

experience. The strength of this connection to the world resides in habit and the

routine application of predicates on the basis of similarity with current exemplars.

It was, however, not the correspondence postulate, but a second, 'coherence postulate' which

offered the sociologists an opportunity to re-interpret the Hesse­net in terms of a social theory of

knowledge. The coherence postulate was to give expression to the holistic nature of the net. It

says that constant internal readjustments in the network are required for, because new

experiences present themselves and old experiences sink into oblivion or are subject to a process

of re-evaluation. As Hesse herself admitted (1982: 325), the remarks she made about the

coherence conditions in her 1974 were rather “vague and mysterious”, but she agreed that they

could productively be given a sociological tum.

In a sociological reformulation, the coherence conditions refer to the conditions which

are to account for the stability of our explicit theoretical knowledge.

12 It is important to see that in this ‘primary process of recognition of similarities and differences’ experiences of the world will have been simplified already, as the multitude of possible connections between events will have been selectively filtered (Bloor 1974b: 383). “It may be thought”, says Hesse (1974: 13-14), “that the primary process of classifying objects according to recognizable similarities and differences will provide us with exactly the independent observation predicates required by the traditional view. This, however, is to overlook a logical feature of relations of similarity and difference, namely that they are not transitive. Two objects a and b may be judged to be similar to some degree in respect to predicate P, and may be placed in the class of objects to which P is applicable. But object c which is judged similar to b to some degree may not be similar to a to the same degree or to any degree”. 13 There is a problem here, as we have no access to the world independent of language (Hesse 1974: 51). So we can never prove that our learning of language is, ultimately, based on “causal processes and conditioning” (1974: 50). In her 1974, Hesse does not discuss the origin of the correspondence postulate, but as she has explained elsewhere (1986: 718), she bases the assumption of the fit between language and world ultimately on her view of “the biological basis of perception, which must for reasons of survival relate to real regularities in the world" (italics in original).

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Such stability as there is in a system of knowledge comes entirely from the collective

decisions of its creators and users. It derives from the active protection of parts of the

network.( ...) (These parts) are protected and rendered stable because of their assumed

utility for purposes of justification, legitimation and social persuasion. Since these

activities are meant to further interests, we can say that interests are coherence

conditions. And since interests derive from, and constitute, social structures it will be

no surprise to find that putting nature to social use creates identities between

knowledge and society of the kind predicted in Primitive Classification (Bloor 1982: 280

and 283; italics in original).14

To prevent misunderstandings, two points should be kept in mind.

1. Interests should be read as one possible instantiation of the claim that the stability of

(parts of) the net should be explained by social factors.15

2. A sociological explanation is not an alternative to explanations in terms of empirical

adequacy or rationality. Rather it explains what people take to be true after examination of

the relevant social factors (Barnes 1982: 103).16

The Durkheim-Mauss thesis – once given a new foundation provided by Mary Hesse – allowed

the sociologists of scientific knowledge to argue that ‘knowledge generally’ (i.e. conceptal knowledge)

has an ‘inalienable social dimension’. Without the conceptual network provided by society, our

initial grasp of our experiences would remain insufficient to qualify as the experience of

competent members of whichever human society. One reason for this is that the conceptual

14 Bloor (1982: 283) has further extended this argument by not only linking Durkheim-Mauss to Hesse, but by making still another link, viz. with the group-grid theory of Mary Douglas. The Douglas-approach is suggested as an instrument to examine methodically the way in which conceptions of nature can be correlated to the social position of its users. Because the latter approach has not found general acceptance in the sociology of scientific knowledge, it outside the scope of this study. For a study of the relation between scientist’s attitudes and their social position, see C. Bloor and D. Bloor 1982. Bloor 1978 has argued that the four modes of mathematical investigation described byLakatos 1976 can be interpreted in terms of the group-grid theory. In his 1983 Bloor has tried to link the theory toWittgenstein’s account of language-games. For further applications of the group-grid theory, see Boon 1979, 1983;Wilhelm 1981; Caneva 1981 and Rudwick 1982. For a discussion of the development of the theory, see Oldroyd1986. For an attempt to quantify the theory, see Gross and Rayner 1985.15 Within the sociology of scientific knowledge, the proposal to describe social factors primarily in terms of interestshas not found general acceptance (see Woolgar 1981; Yearly 1982). The interest theory was mainly developed in theStrong Programme. For a discussion of thitheory see Barnes 1977 and Barnes and MacKenzie 1979. Some empiricalstudies based on interest theory are to be found in Barnes and Shapin, eds., 1979. See also Barnes and Shapin 1976;Shapin and Barnes 1977, 1979 and Shapin 1979. For a reaction to Woolgar’s critique, see Barnes 1981a andMacKenzie 1981. For a discussion of the social uses of science see Shapin 1980.16 “(I)t is perfectly possible for systems of knowledge to reflect society and be addressed to the natural world at thesame time. (...) (K)nowledge is a channel which can convey two signals at one” (Bloor 1982: 293). “(Social factors)don't have to work by our reflecting on them, choosing them, or interpreting them. Some of them, some of the time,just cause us to think and act in certain ways” (Bloor 1991: 173; italics in original).

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network is "the heoretical framework within which instrumental coping with the natural world

is organized” (Hesse 1988: 98). Where such a framework is lacking, even instrumental coping

with the natural world cannot competently take place. All this is not to say that (conceptual)

knowledge is purely social. The claim is that all our concepts and classifications and theories are

socially structured and conventionally channelled forms of induction. Induction and social

channelling necessarily and always go together (Bloor 1982: 305). It is this ‘inalienable social

dimension’ of (conceptual) knowledge that enabled the sociologists of scientific knowledge to

justify sociology’s status as a fully general approach. If (conceptual) knowledge is ‘inalienable

social’, then sociology is an ‘inalienable’ part of the study of knowledge, so their conclusion may

be summarized.

2.2.2 Order: social and cognitive

So far we have learned that:

(a) at the basis of cognitive and social order there lies a conceptual ordering of the world;

(b) this conceptual ordering is based on a network which is preserved by the members of

a society.

As Collins (1985: 2) puts it:

(O)ur concepts and our social conventions reinforce each other – as in a network –

and this explains the maintenance of order. Concepts and conventions are ‘jointly

entrenched’ within ‘forms of life’.

According to this argument, these ‘forms of life’ are only possible if the world is conceptually

ordered first. Otherwise there would be no ‘world’ to begin with, but only a mere ‘flux of

impressions’. So, social order is based on conceptual order. This linking of cognitive and social

order is based on two assumptions:

1. To ‘have’ a concept is to know how to use it. (On the basis of this assumption the

sociologists focus on concept application, as it is guided by the conventions of a society.)

2. Applying a concept properly requires the control of a society, lest concept application

would be at the mercy of the whims of private judgment.

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The restored Durkheim tradition allowed the sociologists of scientific knowledge (a) to

conceptualize a sociology of culture and (b) to conceptualize culture in terms of knowledge. Both

objectives required that the Hesse-net was interpreted in an even more liberal way by taking it as

a model of a ‘cultural core’, conceived as the conceptual resources of a society. In this

conception, culture is constituted by the network of concepts of a society and by the ways these

concepts are applied by its members.

The sociologists of scientific knowledge have gone to great lengths to emphasize that

man is simultaneously a learner and a creator of culture. This is to say that (a) the Hesse-net should

not be conceived as a static whole – it is constantly being readjusted – and (b) that it does not

contain rules determining the way in which the concepts are actually applied by the members of

society.17

(C)oncept application is not a social activity in the sense that it is determined by a

culturally given classification of reality, but a social activity which gives rise to and

develops the patterns of that very classification. The pattern does not account for the

activity; rather the activity accounts for the pattern (Barnes 1981: 310).18

To conclude, concepts are cultural resources “to be applied as agents find point or purpose”

(Barnes 1981: 314). This brings Barnes (1982b: 37) to the thesis that “(t)o understand the growth

of knowledge, one must visualize an entire community incessantly applying concepts and

developing their usage over time” (Barnes 1982b: 37).27 His conclusion (1982a: 37) is that “(i)f

the social sciences accept an obligation to explain cultural change and the growth of knowledge,

then at the verbal level it is sequences of contingent judgments which confront them, and

demand to be accounted for”.

2.2.3 The role of routines

The above, however, is a description of concept application under idealized conditions. In this

idealized description , every act of concept application has in principle the status of an open-ended

17 Both aspects are expressed in the notion of finitism, which says that the meaning of a concept is dependent on its place in the constantly changing whole of the network (Barnes 1981, 1982a, 1982b, 1984). The notion of finitism has got

a lot of attention in the theoretical reflections of the early sociologists of scientific knowledge, to such an extent that

Barnes (1984b: 407) even has characterized it as “a degree of overkill”. Bloor (1991: 165) has called finitism

“probably the most important single idea in the sociological vision of knowledge. It shows the social character of that

most basic of all cognitive processes: the move from one instance of concept application to the next” (emphasis added).

18 Cf. Fuller 1988:53: “(T)he social order defined by a set of language games constrains an agent’s possibilities only through the actions taken by other agents in particular situations” (italics in original). Cf. also Latour 1983: 33, note

3: “A fact is harder or softer as a function of what happens to it in other hands later on”.

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event. When we descend from the level of principle to the actual practice of daily life, it appears,

though, that ‘open­endedness’ usually gives way to routine. To be sure, society would have a hard

time if every act of concept application actually were open-ended. Barnes (1984a: 207, note 10)

acknowledges this much. “An adequate characterization of routine is perhaps the central problem

of the human sciences”. The point is that routine concept applications are formally contingent and

corrigible. To accept them as definitive is itself, formally speaking, a judgment – a decision not to

override automatic tendencies socialized into cognition (Barnes 1984a: 207, note 10).

In those cases we allow, as we need not, our unreflective linguistic activity to develop

proper usage: we place our confidence, as we need not, in our habits and routines. (...)

Such trust in what comes routinely and unreflectively is essential in no particular case, so

that its presence in any particular case can be said to reflect a contingent judgment

that usage may best be developed in that way in that case (Barnes 1982a: 34; italics in

original).

The answer to the question how the Durkheimean tradition allowed the early sociology of

scientific knowledge to restore the cultural perspective and to conceive culture in terms of

knowledge can be summarized as follows:

1. In the Durkheim-radition, the world has to be conceptually ordered to become a

habitat for the human organism.

2. That is to say that in order to act in the world as an accountable human being, man

has to have knowledge about the world first. (This is what I have called earlier ‘a

knowledge-seeking stance’)

3. The conceptual knowledge the human organism needs to become fully human is

provided by the society into which he is born.

4. This conceptual knowledge can be depicted in terms of a network.

5. This network is identified as the culture of the society concerned.

In the Durkheim-tradition, classification is the central notion. Put differently, in this tradition,

knowledge is conceived as conceptual knowledge. The question is whether an account about

classification – or about concept-application as is the case in the early sociology of scientific

knowledge – is necessarily of any great significance for an anthropology of science. This question,

moreover, has relevance for an evaluation of the early sociology of scientific knowledge on its own

terms. It has set itself the goal to develop a non-evaluative , naturalistic theory of knowledge that

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focuses on “whatever men take to be knowledge” (Bloor 1976: 2). As ‘men’ does not coincide

with ‘Western men’, the conception of “whatever men take to be knowledge” should not be

restricted by specific Western views of knowledge. However, as Levi-Strauss has pointed out in

Race et Histoire, the diversity of specialized development in human cultures is much greater than

we will ever know. Not only because much of the human past is irretrievably lost for observation,

but also because a part of this specialized development simply remains unnoticed as it falls

beyond the frame of reference and the imagination of the observers (Levi-Strauss 1973: 323-62).

If, however, certain forms of specialized development are not noticed, then at least at this point

the realization of a non-evaluative, ‘naturalistic’ theory of knowledge is in danger. These issues

are addressed in the next Fieldnote.

FIELDNOTE

III. ARE THERE DIFFERENT KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE?

Let us take as our starting-point Bloor's (1976: 2) proposition that a non­evaluative,

naturalistic theory of knowledge conceives knowledge as “whatever men take to be

knowledge”; i.e. "those beliefs which men confidently hold to and live by” (emphasis

added). This transition from "whatever men take to be knowledge" to beliefs

apparently means no border crossing to Bloor. In this he is not unique. As we have

learnt in the former chapters, equating relevant knowledge with conceptual

knowledge is hardly something that is in need of further explanation – by Western

standards that is to say. It is the kind of equation we would expect to find in a culture

which conceives of the world as a text and of acquiring knowledge about the world as

an act of decoding or reading. So it is not surprising that we find the same equation

in, for instance, Levi-Strauss. This author has done his utmost to break the shackles

of the Western frame of reference and to broaden the imagination of Western

observers by showing that ‘primitive’ societies have highly sophisticated systems of

knowledge. Nevertheless, he too could not escape making the range of diversity in

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kinds of knowledge coincide with the range of conceptual knowledge. Says

Levi-Strauss (quoted by Schwartz 1981: 29):

(A)nthropology appears to me as a philosophy (sic!) of knowledge, a

philosophy of concept, I think that anthropology can make progress only if it

is situated at the level of concept (emphasis added).

Within these confines, he shows his Western readers how they can perceive forms of

knowledge which had remained invisible to them, by taking a culture as “a single

gigantic language” (Hawkes 1977:34) and by looking at it from a semiotic point of

view. So Levi-Strauss would have no difficulty in subscribing to Barnes’s (1977: 5)

judgment that “we read the world rather as we read handwriting”. Levi-Strauss has

done his utmost to enlarge the number of texts we can read. But what we are able to

perceive remain texts all the same.

3.1 A configuration of learning

In the culture I am studying the world has the status of a text, and acquiring

knowledge about the world (learning) has the status of an act of reading or decoding.

According to my informants, however, decoding the message of the world is not the

only way to acquire knowledge. As an example, take Barnes’s (1977: 85) remark that

“(k)nowledge can develop in immediate moves from concrete instance to concrete

instance as well as by the extension of abstract theoretical structures”. Both ways of

learning, though, are not equivalent. Says Barnes (1977: 5):

We can, admittedly, deploy knowledge directly as we act, but this is because our

perception organises and pre-classifies what we perceive; we read the world, rather

as we read handwriting, as an assemblage of symbols (emphasis added).

The same view was found in Mary Hesse’s (1988: 98) characterization of language

as “the theoretical framework within which instrumental coping with the natural world

is organized”. What these informants are saying is that:

1. there are different ways of coping with the world (different ways of learning);

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2. coping with the world in conceptual terms is fundamental in relation to the

other ones.

Fundamental in which way? According to Barnes, we can “deploy knowledge directly

as we act”, but this is because our perception organises and pre-classifies what we

perceive. Put differently, this is because the classifications of our culture have been

routinely embedded in our perception during our socialization into competent

members of our society. It is concepts that create order out of chaos. As the

psychologist Epstein (1980: 34) puts it:

Whether we like it or not, each of us, because he has a human brain, forms

a theory of reality that brings order into what otherwise would be a chaotic

world. We need a theory to make sense out of the world (emphasis added).

So, coping with the world in conceptual terms is fundamental to other ways of

learning, because without concepts there would be no ordered world to begin with.

That is why Mary Hesse says that instrumental coping with the world takes place

within a "theoretical framework".

When we take ‘coping with the world’ as a synonym for ‘learning’, we can

rephrase the view expressed by my informants as follows:

1. Man has various abilities to learn.

2. One of these abilities - learning conceptually - has primacy over other

abilities.

3. In as far as the other abilities deploy knowledge in a world that is

conceptually ordered, conceptually learning dominates these other abilities.

That is to say: the other abilities have to express themselves in terms defined

by the dominant ability.

At the end of chapter 2, I have argued that growing up in a culture that experiences

the world as an intelligibly ordered uni-verse, will generate a preferred relationship to

the world, which I have called a knowledge-seeking stance. I called this relationship

‘preferred’ because it ‘somehow’ permeates all other kinds of relations to the world.

We are now in a position to say something more about this ‘somehow’. The

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knowledge in ‘knowledge-seeking stance’ refers to conceptual knowledge. To say

that a knowledge-seeking stance permeates all other kinds of relations to the world is

to say that the ability to acquire conceptual knowledge about the world dominates all

other learning abilities. Let us call the ability to acquire conceptual knowledge about

the world ‘theoretical learning’ and the relationship between different learning abilities

‘a configuration of learning’ (see Balagangadhara 1994, chapter 11). It is here that we

have the second axis along which I describe my target culture. Applying this second

axis, we can say that characteristic for the culture I am studying, is a particular

configuration of learning in which a theoretical way of learning dominates the other

human learning abilities, which have to express themselves in terms of the dominant

one.

3.2 On learning and meta-learning

The idea that a culture can be described along the axis of a particular configuration of

learning is also suggested in Levi-Strauss's Les Structures Elémentaires de la

Parenté (1949; here quoted from the English translation, 1969: 93):

Every new-born child provides in embryonic form the sum total of

possibilities, but each culture and period of history will retain and develop

only a chosen few of them. Every new-born child comes equipped (...) with

all the means ever available to mankind to define its relations to the world

and its relations to others. (...) (Each culture) represents a choice, which

the group imposes and perpetuates (emphasis added).

This ‘choice of a culture’ is imposed on the new-born when it is socialized into a

member of its group. In the available literature, socialization is mostly depicted as a

set of processes in which the resources – defined in terms of content – of the group

are transmitted to the learning human being. There is, however, another aspect

involved in socialization, which is often overlooked. By focusing on the transmission

of the resources of the group, the emphasis is on what is learned. However, the

learning human being is not only taught the lore of its group. By being instructed it

also gets an important meta­message about how to learn properly. Let us call this

meta-message ‘meta­ learning’. Levi-Strauss (1969: 95) gives an example which

shows the difference between Western and Navaho meta-learning:

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In the Navaho family, the art of weaving or jewellery-making is learnt from

example. To the young native, to look is to learn (...) Whence the complete

absence of a way of life so common among us, even among adults ... I

mean the habit of asking questions such as "And that, why do that?' or

"After that, what are you going to do?' It is this habit more than any other

which has given natives their strange opinion of white men, for the Indian is

convinced that the white man is fool (emphasis added).

When we add the aspect of meta-learning to the argument developed above, we can

describe the culture I am studying in terms of a particular configuration of learning

and meta-learning, in which conceptual meta-learning dominates the other human

learning abilities, which have to express themselves in terms of the dominant one. It

is this configuration of learning and meta­ learning which I call a ‘knowledge-seeking

stance’.

3.3 Two ways of defining human action

What does it mean when one says that other human learning abilities have to

express themselves in terms of conceptual meta-learning? As an example let us take

Peter Winch’s criticism of the way in which Michael Oakshott in his paper The Tower

of Babel (1948-1949) has defined moral action.

Oakshott (quoted by Winch 1958: 58) distinguishes two forms of moral action,

viz. (a) “the reflective application of a moral rule” and (b) “a habit of affection and

behaviour”. In habitual morality, Oakshott says, there is no question of consciously

applying a rule of behaviour, nor of expression of a moral ideal. Habitual moral action

consists of acts, according with certain habits of behaviour, which are not learned by

precept but by “living with people who habitually behave in a certain manner”. It is the

second category to which Winch objects. In this category, he says, Oakshott is

wrongly blurring the boundary between human learning and animal learning. Of

course Winch is not denying that humans do acquire routines. But he emphasizes

that routine behaviour should not be explained (in last instance that is) as a matter of

habit or routine.

It is only because human actions exemplify rules that we can speak of past

experience as relevant to current behaviour. If it were merely a question of

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habits, then our current behaviour might certainly be influenced by the way

in which we had acted in the past: but that would be just a causal influence"

(Winch 1958: 62).

From the fact that Winch links rules to reflection, it appears that he conceives of rules

as essentially discursive. To be sure, Winch faithfully follows Wittgenstein by stating

that rules “arise in the course of conduct”, but to this he adds (1958: 63) that:

the nature of conduct of which they arise can only be grasped as an

embodiment of those principles (emphasis added). The notion of a principle

(...) of conduct and the notion of meaningful action are interwoven (italics in

original).

However, it is ultimately rules that – at a conceptual level – have priority over

meaningful action (Winch 1958: 129). Put differently, Winch says that it is by

describing it under a rule that meaningful action can be identified in the first place. He

argues this claim (1958: 63) by emphasizing that man has the ability to reflect on his

behaviour.

Without this possibility we are dealing not with meaningful behaviour but

with something which is either more response to stimuli or the

manifestation of a habit which is really blind" (emphasis added).

Winch grants that human action is not a matter of "simply a putting into effect of pre-

existing reflective principles" (1958: 68). Nevertheless,

there is no sharp break between behaviour which expresses discursive

ideas and that which does not; (...) that which does not is sufficiently like

that which does to make it necessary to regard it as analogous to the other

(1958: 129).

In this respect, says Winch, human behaviour is fundamentally different from animal

behaviour. In the case of “an animal forming a habit (...) there can be no question of

‘the reflective application of a criterion’” (1958: 60; italics in original). The animal “has

been conditioned to respond in a certain way, whereas I know the right way to go on

on the basis of what I have been taught" (1958: 62; italics in original).

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3.3.1 Learning to live with other people

In his discussion of this argument, Bloor – from whose 1983 I have adopted this

example – emphatically disagrees with Winch (1983: 168-181) Human action and

man’s higher mental processes, he asserts, are the outgrowth of simpler patterns of

animal interaction and response. Any satisfactory theory about human action and

thought must do justice to the new orders of facts that emerge, without losing sight of

this fundamental continuity (1983: 172). As we noticed earlier, the sociologists of

scientific knowledge follow Wittgenstein in his claim that, ultimately, our behaviour is

based not upon reflection, but upon “an ungrounded way of acting”. As members of a

society, they argue, we inherit a system of beliefs and actions, whose certainty

derives from the fact that we belong to that community.

Giving grounds (...) comes to an end; -- but the end is not certain

presuppositions striking us as immediately true (...) it is our acting. which

lies at the bottom of the language-game (Wittgenstein, quoted in Bloor

1983: 170; italics in original).

So, according to this argument, we inherit our routines from the culture in which we

are born. Put in terms of the distinction made by Oakshott, this is to say that

ultimately meaningful human action consists of acts in according with certain habits

of behaviour, which are not learned by precept but by “living with people who

habitually behave in a certain manner”.

Put in terms of learning abilities, the sociologists of scientific knowledge are

trying to capture an ability that enables a human being to learn from living with other

people. An ability, that is, which produces the kind of knowledge, necessary to form

a society. An ability – as Barnes put it – “ to deploy knowledge directly as we act”.

However, once they try to conceptualize this ability, they cannot avoid saying that:

(t)o understand the growth of knowledge, one must visualize an entire

community incessantly applying concepts and developing their usage over

time" (Barnes 1982b: 37; emphasis added).

Just as decisions are needed to fix the outcome of every experimental test,

so a decision of sorts is needed about every act of concept application

(Bloor 1981: 211; emphasis added).

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Likewise, the human ability to act routinely was said to be open-ended in principle.

Acting unreflectively is described as reflecting “a contingent judgment that usage may

best be developed in that way in that case” (Barnes 1982a: 34).

When we compare the Winch-argument with that of the sociologists of

scientific knowledge, we must conclude that, in spite of the differences, a remarkable

similarity exists between both:

1. Both emphasize that human action cannot adequately be described as

simply a putting into effect of pre-existing reflective principles.

2. Both emphasize that (a) in principle human beings have an ability to reflect

on their behaviour and (b) that human action should be described as though

reasoned motives were underlying this action.

Both sides have dug themselves in at the opposite poles of Oakshott’s dichotomy,

but neither position can develop an account that is unambiguous. If we allow

ourselves the liberty to rephrase their arguments in terms of learning abilities, we

may say that both are caught in their culture’s implicit assumption that all human

learning abilities are ‘grafted onto’ theoretical learning. Winch tries to conceptualize

human action in terms of theoretical learning, but has to admit that concrete human

action cannot always be so described. The sociologists of scientific knowledge try to

conceptualize the human ability to form societies in terms of acquiring knowledge,

but in the end they cannot avoid describing it in terms of theoretical knowledge. Both

positions, I suggest, are expressions of a configuration of learning and meta-

learning, in which theoretical meta-learning dominates the other human learning

abilities, which have to express themselves in terms of the dominant one.

3.3.2 A moral möbius strip

We are now in a better position to understand the difficulties faced by Evans­

Pritchard, which we discussed earlier. Evans-Pritchard too could not avoid describing

Zande actions in terms of the beliefs they expressed. Thereby he may,

unintentionally, have demonstrated the aptness of Levi-Strauss's point that the

diversity of specialized development in human cultures is much greater than we will

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ever know, because this specialized development simply remains unnoticed as it

falls beyond the frame of reference and the imagination of Western observers. This

frame of reference is – partly at least – constituted by a knowledge-seeking stance,

instructing people to ‘read’ human action in terms of the conceptual knowledge it

embodies. When one has grown up in a culture characterized by this particular

configuration of learning, one will have learned to experience human action as

embodying conceptual knowledge. So, even if one has to admit that the so-and-so

have no theories about their behaviour, one cannot but conclude that ‘somehow’

theories have to be ‘behind’ their actions. To say otherwise would be tantamount to

saying that the so-and-so are not fully human.

Take, for example, Arthur Danto's description of "The Discipline of Action in

the Bhagavad Gita."19 The Gita, Danto says (1976: 96)...

...wants us to behave un-motivatedly, not to have motives for what one

does, but only to do what one does because that is the way to do what is

in one's nature to do. The correct or acceptable answer to 'Why are you

doing that?' if what one is seeking is not instruction in how things are done,

is more or less this: 'I am a C and this is what Cs do.' If I am a C, my

obligation is to fulfil C-hood, but I have no motives over and above this for

doing what I do.

Instead of asking what kind of knowledge is present in a society, which teaches

its members to relate to each other this way, Danto goes on to say (1976: 97):

It is, of course, exceedingly difficult to think of behaving this impersonal way

all the time, becoming coincident (...) with one's role. (...) (W)e hold it

against people who are utterly impersonal in their dealings, who identify

with their offices: we say that they are not human, are mere machines, or

have no heart. One sees this type of person over and again in the Indian:

heroes and heroines in the great epics, for example, seem to have no

inside, are completely on the surface, like a moral möbius strip. (...) One

finds none of the complexity of motive and feeling for interiority with which

we are so much concerned in our own literature (...) Western heroes have

‘personalities’ which the Indian ones lack. But we must not forget that it is

19A. C. Danto, Mysticism and Morality: Oriental Thought and Moral Philosophy. Harmondsworth:

Penguin Books (1976), chapter 5.

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the loss of individuality that constitutes salvation in the Indian schema

(1976: 97; emphasis added).20

But surely, if this line of reasoning were to be applied consistently, it would produce

a peculiar variant of Latour's theory, since we should have to acknowledge that much

of the world outside the West is actually inhabited by machines or non-humans. Take

Bali, for instance. Here we find:

(...) a persistent and systematic attempt to stylize all aspects of personal

expression to the point where anything idiosyncratic, anything characteristic

of the individual merely because he is who he is physically, psychologically

or biographically, is muted in favour of his assigned place in the continuing,

and, so it is thought , never-changing pageant that is Balinese life. It is

dramatis personae, not actors, that endure; indeed it is dramatis personae,

not actors, that in the proper sense really exist (Geertz 1984: 128).

Or take the Gahuku-Gama of New Guinea, whose conception of man “does not allow

for any clear recognized distinction between the individual and the status which he

occupies” (Read 1955: 255). The Gahuku-Gama do not conceive people as “equals

in a moral sense; their value does not reside in themselves as individuals or persons;

it is dependent on the position they occupy within a system of inter-personal and

inter-group relationships” (1955: 250). Being human “does not necessarily establish a

moral bond between individuals, nor does it provide an abstract standard against

which all action can be judged” (1955: 261). The moral quality of an action is

determined by the fact who does what and where (1955: 260). Or take the Zapotec,

who say that “we see the face, but do not know what is in the heart”. For the Zapotec,

however, this is not a problem at all. The Zapotec “do not have to know what is in the

heart, because it isn’t defined as being very interesting and it shouldn’t have anything

to do with human relations” (Selby; quoted in Shweder and Bourne 1984: 190;

emphasis added).

The members of a culture characterized by the knowledge-seeking stance will

have great difficulties in understanding the Indians, the Balinese, the Gahuku-Gama

or the Zapotec. They will, as a matter of routine, do what Evans-Pritchard did: change

the terms of description by providing practical certainties with a theoretical foundation

20 Danto does not explain how 'salvation' can be reached by getting rid of something which one

never had.

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they never needed. Not only that. As has become abundantly clear in the course of

this chapter, they will – just as routinely – assume that language is a tool with which

people order the world conceptually. As C. Wright Mills suggests, however, in his

paper The language and ideas of Ancient China, this view is one more

misleading analogy with Western culture.21

"The word in Chinese," says Mills (1962: 479), "is not a sign serving to denote

a concept. It does not fix in a definite manner a degree of abstraction and generality.”

This is to say that Chinese language "does not appear to be organized in order to

express abstract signs which are of aid in specifying ideas" (1962: 478). Mills quotes

Marcel Granet who has compared Western European languages with Chinese. Says

Granet (quoted by Mills 1962: 494):

We are habituated to considering language as a set of symbols specially

organized for the communication of ideas. (But) the Chinese do not place

the art of language apart from other procedures of signalling and acting....

When they speak and write, they (...) are seeking to display and suggest

lines of conduct.

"Granet's analysis of the Chinese language", Mills goes on to say (1962: 478),

"discloses its controlling function to be an ideal of moral, social, and ritualistic

efficacy" (emphasis in original). He quotes the example of the lack of "one expression

which in a socially neutral manner conveys the general and abstract idea of 'death’.' It

cannot be spoken of without evoking (by the use of a single monosyllabic) a set of

intricate ritual, and an entire sector of societal action" (1962: 482). Mills characterizes

Chinese as "largely a denotative language in which the denotata elicit consummatory

responses" (1962: 495; emphasis in original).

This language does not furnish an instrument of analysis, but rather

channels all thought into a sort of organon of conduct (...) It is fashioned

entirely for the communication of sentimental attitudes, the suggestion of

lines of conduct; to convince and convert.( ...) It is practical in its function

and content (...) Chinese is a really admirable force for communicating ‘a

sentimental shock' for inviting one to take part in some action. Always it is

21 Mills's paper is from 1940, but is was published only in his Power, Politics and People: The

Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills (Edited with an Introduction by Irving Louis Horowitz). New York:

Oxford University Press, 1962, 469-520.

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concrete and tied closely to conduct. A word does not 'correspond' to a

concept (1962: 479; emphasis added) .

Descriptions like this one give us at least some tentative impressions of the way

language functions in a culture which is not characterized by a knowledge-seeking

stance. It makes us curious about the specific configuration of learning and meta-

learning which constitute what we may perhaps refer to as 'a performative stance.'

How is this configuration connected to a language which is "fashioned entirely to the

communication of sentimental attitudes (and) the suggestion of lines of conduct?" Is

this configuration typical for China, or can it be found in other societies too? Does it

apply, for instance, to the Akha, which were described by Deborah Tooker? The

amount of questions can be raised exponentially, but that would not be a very

productive thing to do here. The main point is clear, however.

By conceiving "whatever men take to be knowledge" in terms of conceptual

knowledge, sociology of knowledge has failed on its own terms to develop a non-

evaluative, naturalistic theory of knowledge. In order to develop such a theory, we

have to give up some things Western culture has taught us are obvious. Before we

can develop such a theory, we badly need "multiple descriptions given by members

from different cultures of both themselves and others against the background of their

own cultures" (Balagangadhara 1994: 441). Only such descriptions, when they are

forthcoming, can tell us how it is to live in a culture that does not have to order the

world conceptually first, in order to act properly in it. How such descriptions will look

like? We can only wait and see, and admit that they are urgently needed. Levi-

Strauss was right. Much of the specialized knowledge of non-Western cultures still

falls outside the scope of Western imagination. One thing is clear: a Comparative

Science of Cultures cannot be a ‘mono-cultural’ affair.

3.4 A central role for classification?

Finally, we have to address the question whether the Durkheim-Mauss tradition, by

focusing on classification, is of any use to an anthropology of science? Put

differently, has classification any direct link to the development of science? In his

Cognitive foundations of natural history: Towards an anthropology of science (1990),

Scott Atran has argued that it has. Or, more accurately, Atran has argued that

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classification has a direct link with the development of a specific science, viz. natural

history.

Atran argues that man has an innate disposition to classify and name about

600 different kinds of life of his local environment and to arrange them in a simple

taxonomic structure common to all languages. It is here, he says, that resides our

‘common sense’ (Atran 1990:2), the "basic rationality" (ibid.: 213), common to all

humans. This basic rationality allows man to see the local world "as it is."

(It) is equally accessible to the sage and the ignoramus, the skilful and the

clumsy, no matter what the culture (...). No speculation can possibly

confute the grounds for this common-sense view of things because all

speculation must start from it. There just is no other place to begin to think

about the world.(...) (It) is an indubitable source of truth for knowledge of

the readily experienced local world (1990: 2-3).

Against much taken for granted wisdom in anthropology, Atran emphasizes that our

natural common sense works along rational lines; it yields conceptual knowledge

(1990: 212-213). So far, so good. From this point on, however, I have two questions:

1. Suppose it is possible to identify a basic rationality which is common to all

human beings, would it be necessary to conceive it in terms of classification?

2. Suppose that classification were a constitutive part of our basic rationality.

In that hypothetical case, would classification be of any great significance for

the anthropology of science?

3.4.1 Basic rationality and classification

Suppose it is possible to identify a basic human rationality. Is it necessary to

conceive it in terms of classification? In order to answer this question, let us adopt the

distinction made by David Reason (1979) between (a) categorisation and (b)

classification.

"In one sense," says Reason (1979: 221), “the notion of classification (or one

very like it) is indispensable."

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(A)ll discourse must at some point indicate and implicate aspects and events of a presumed actual world, and such nods, winks and nudges, by directing our attention to what they are about, effectively discover a classifying of the world. However, this says no more than that sensible discourse proceeds from and in acts of distinction and demarcation

(1979: 221-222; emphasis added).

The term 'categorisation' refers to these acts of distinguishing and demarcating.

Reason emphasizes that "(c)ategorisation solicits recognition of a kind which

depends on no particular features of expression for its correct exercise" (1979: 222).

He reserves the term 'classification' to refer to a much stronger form of ordering the

world conceptually. In this stronger sense, classification is conceived as a rule-

governed activity. These rules must be articulable in principle and constitute criteria

of identity.22

(T)his version of classification presupposes a mode of signification which at

least allows of an analytic operation (...): it must be possible to conceptually

dissect entities so that either the truth or falsity of particular predicates may

be established in their cases. Furthermore for classification to be a principal

form of the organization of consciousness, this mode of signification must be

the dominant mode in the culture in question (1979: 223; emphasis added).

Reason also specifies a crucial precondition for this strong form of classifying, viz.

“the stipulation of the separation of a sign from its sense, a mark from its

interpretation" (1979: 223).

Atran's 'common sense' or 'basic rationality' is in its most elementary form not

unlike the mild form of ordering the local environment which Reason calls

'categorisation' (cf. Atran 1990: 27). It seems not unreasonable to postulate that

human beings have an innate ability to cope with the world by acts of distinction and

demarcation. Edible should be distinguished from inedible, friend from foe, kin from

non-kin, 'us' from 'them.' Other, more intricate distinctions and demarcations are

necessary in order to form a society. But Reason may have a point in arguing that

22 "The rules must be articulable (in the culture) for us to be sure that the arrangement under

consideration is stable (...) and to ensure that the rules themselves relate in a way which assures us

that we are not dealing with an ad hoc arrangement (such as an inventory, whose organizing principle

is outside itself) (…) they must constitute criteria of identity to ensure that the classification transcends

particular occasions and is learnable" (Reason 1979: 222).

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these different forms of categorisation solicit recognition of a kind which depends on

no particular features of expression for its correct exercise. I take this to mean that

categorization may express itself in different forms of knowledge, dependent on the

kind of learning ability involved. The Akha distinguish 'types of people' by their zan.

This kind of distinction is not based on an analytic operation, but on an ability to

deploy knowledge directly as they act. The same – or at least a kindred – ability may

be assumed to be involved in the kind of 'orthopraxy,' spoken of earlier. Other

learning abilities may solicit other kinds of recognition, but, as we know very little

about other forms of knowledge and learning, we can only speculate here. The point,

however, is that making distinctions and demarcations does not entail classification in

the strong sense. Reason rightly argues that for classification to be a principal form of

the organization of consciousness, this mode of signification must be the dominant

mode in the culture in question. We have seen that in Western culture it is. But

assuming with Durkheim-Mauss,Hesse and the sociologists of scientific knowledge

that it is a principal form of organizing consciousness tout court is the umpteenth

example of applying a misleading analogy with Western culture. "There is no doubt

that in much of our thinking the notion is indispensable, but this gives us no licence to

raise it as an epistemological standard" (Reason 1979: 221; emphasis added).

3.4.2 Is science classification writ large?

Classification in the strong sense, says Atran (1990: 45-46), only developed after the

Renaissance. What happened from the Age of Exploration onwards, was that our

natural ability to classify about 600 local life forms became increasingly irrelevant in

view of the increasing knowledge of nature. The time of discoveries had yielded lots

of new plants and animals and a principle was needed to put them in order. Local

and exotic life-forms were now arrayed on a supra-local scale (1990: 28). The time of

common sense classification gave way to the systematizations of natural history.

It is Atran's claim that there is no 'epistemological break' between common

sense and natural history.

(l)t was common sense itself which, having reached the limits of its first line

of understanding, thereby evinced the recognition that a problem existed for

science to treat. Crucial, perhaps, to that recognition was an awareness

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that science could draw its original means of tackling the problem

by appealing to (the distinctions made in common sense) (1990:

46).

By the time of Cuvier (1769-1832) categorization on the basis of everyday experience

had given way completely to classification on the basis of anatomy and the function

of parts. A 'scientific breakaway' from common sense categorization had taken place.

The stage was set for Darwin.

What Atran's argument boils down to then, is that there is a continuous

development from common sense to at least one science, viz. from natural history to

biology. The relative modesty of his claim makes Atran recognizable within the

cognitivist tradition as a modularist.23 Atran just addresses one module. His common

sense refers only to our innate propensity to classify the living species of our local

environment. For lack of evidence he refrains from speculating whether this

propensity crosses domains (1990: 47-49). This may be a wise move for a cognitivist,

but its implication for the anthropology of science is that, were it to follow this line, it

would actually become an anthropology of sciences (plural). Like in Atran's study a

cognitive module was described which is at the basis of natural history, so other

anthropological studies would, in this view, have to reveal other modules which are at

the basis of other scientific disciplines.

My problem with this view is the following. I am very much in agreement with

Atran that the anthropology of science should address the nature of scientific thinking

generally and that it should place the central problem of scientific thinking squarely

within the larger puzzle of the nature of human thought (1990: 267). But I most

strongly disagree with his argument – however carefully it may be qualified – that

scientific thinking has common sense as its point of departure. What my informants

have made clear is that before science can develop:

1. human beings have to learn to perceive the world in a very 'unnatural' way

(among others, as a uni-verse which is intelligibly ordered);

23 A modularist does not take the brain as one all-purpose organ, but as consisting of lots of

different innate systems designed for specifics.

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2. the human abilities to learn have to be co-ordinated in a specific

configuration of learning and meta-learning (so that theoretical learning

becomes the dominant mode).

Like most of my other informants, Atran has taken the development of one culture as

paradigmatic for all cultures. To be sure, in this culture the take-off of science can be

related to a constellation of favourable circumstances. As we saw earlier, for Edward

Zilsel these circumstances were brought about by the advent of commercial

capitalism. For Atran it is the massive increase of plants and animals from the Age of

the Discoveries onwards that triggered one science. What remains a mystery in both

accounts, though, is who told the members of this one culture that there is an

intelligibly ordered uni-verse and that it can be known by man in the first place? And

how was the configuration of learning brought about which made possible the

merging of theory and practice which – if we accept the Zilsel thesis – was a

necessary precondition for science to arise?

CODA

In chapters 2, 3 and 4 I have answered Woolgar's question "What is 'Anthropological'

about the Anthropology of Science?" by discussing four ways in which an

'anthropological approach' have been applied in science studies. In each case my

conclusion has been that anthropology's most interesting potential – rendering things

cultural – has not been put to its proper use. In the Fieldnotes I have suggested some

of the issues which the anthropology of science, by applying anthropology's specific

potential to transform itself into a Comparative Science of Cultures, could do better. I

am well aware, however, of the fact that 'anthropology' and 'Comparative Science of

Cultures' are not synonymous – at least not yet. So, my suggestions have to be

backed up by an argument to the effect that anthropology's most interesting potential

can only be realized to the full if this discipline is to transform itself in a radical way. In

chapter 5 I will give arguments for this claim. The chapters 6 and 7 can be taken as a

test of the heuristic potential of my arguments.