least as often: culture. This new anthro- space-induced cuts in a book by anthropolo-
pology will still be true t o its heritage; gists!
anthropology will remain distinctive by the In summary, this reinvented anthro-
centrality of the study of culture in its pology looks to me very much like the same
endeavors. Whatever culture is (and these old anthropology at the same old stand.
essays do not address themselves to this There is one important difference. This new
anthropological perennial), it retains its anthropology will be candid about its
dominant place in the anthropological con- politics. This is a positive step, but I suspect
sciousness. that this reinvented anthropology will be
As remarked earlier, in many places the about as much use to serious revolutionaries
authors call for the introduction of new as the old anthropology was to reformers-
problems and the dropping of old. Almost as none.
often, attached t o the insistence that new
problems be tackled, is the remark that new Reference Cited
methods are not needed. Keep the old Frank, Andre Gunder
methods, use them on new problems. Only 1968 Comment on Social Responsi-
one essay (Naders) recognizes that new bilities Symposium. Current Anthro-
problems will probably require new methods pology 9:412-414.
to solve them. She shows, with good ex-
amples, that studying organizations with
power and responsibility in American
society (insurance companies, public Belief, Language, and Experience. RODNEY
agencies) requires something other than par- NEEDHAM. Chicago: University of Chicago
ticipant observation and other traditional Press (published in England by Basil Black-
ethnographic tools. Nader implicitly recog- well & Mott, Oxford), 1972 (publication
nizes that problem, method, and theory are date 1973). xvii + 269 pp., bibliography,
locked together in a dialectic where they index. $10.00 (cloth).
create each other. For this reason, Naders Reoiewed by BENSON SALER
essay will be of far greater use than any of Brandeis University
the others to an anthropologist wanting to
do some reinvented anthropology rather This book raises and explores some fun-
than merely talk about it. damental issues regarding the nature of
There are other continuities between the belief and relates them t o the problem of
old and the reinvented anthropology. As I specifying natural human capacities. Need-
see it, a common feature of the old anthro- ham offers his essay as a contribution to the
pology is the divorce between data and development of an empirical philosophy of
theory. Programmatic statements (which human nature. He writes (p. 188)that The
anthropologists often think of as theoretical) prime objective of the present mono-
are rarely accompanied by extensive bodies graph. . . has been to prove that [the] tacit
of data that support the program. At best, presumption [that people in all societies
casual snippets of data illustrate the points share certain posited, logical and psychic
of the theoretical anthropological essay. capacities] is not well founded, and that the
All of the essays in this book are, in one way essential capacities of man have yet to be
or another, programmatic, and none con- empirically determined by comparative re-
tains data, except in an illustrative way. For search .
example, many assertions are made about Needham was influenced in the crafting
the current state and character of anthro- of his essay by his understanding of the later
pology and academic anthropological organ- philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Need-
izations, but we are given no empirical hams intellectual debt to that philosopher
evidence about anthropology departments, seems evident in his attentions t o the uses of
what they are like, or what they do. In his words in the effort to illuminate their
introduction, Hymes regrets that limitations meanings, in his employment of the idea of
of space prevented inclusion of an essay on family resemblances (overlapping similar-
the structural types of anthropology depart- ities), and in the character of his skepticism
ments. A significant and typical choice for regarding the appropriateness of certain
862 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [76,1974]
and they are kinds of natural resemblance analysis of collective representations (p.
among men (p. 144). So, too, are inten- 216). But because of the relativity intrinsic
ding and imagination (but see p. 235). to linguistic representation (p. 223), there
But belief is not. Imagination is real, belief will always be some uncertainty and
is not (p. 135). variability in the categories by which any
Our attention is also directed t o Livy- language organizes collective thoughts and
Bruhl who warned against a simplistic a p actions. We cannot ever achieve an objec-
plication of our concepts of belief and tive certainty in conceptual analysis (p.
experience to the thoughts of primitive men. 223). Language is an imperfect tool. We do
Primitives, the French theorist supposed, are not always mean what we say or say what
not indifferent to a distinction between we mean, and, in any event, we risk being
belief and experience, but they sometimes misunderstood. Yet we seek to understand
take for experience what we take for belief. man through language.
We must be careful, therefore, not to revert We want, says Needham, to discern a
imprudently to the postulate that there is constant order in the world, and We can
some definition of experience that is do so only through language, if at all. We
uniquely and universally valid. Needham can find distinct orders in different systems
makes of this a radical issue for his inquiry of collective representations, but the
and for any comparative interpretation of confused and contradictory testimonies of
forms of human understanding: the numerous cultural traditions argue only
The concept of experience, which is against any universal order underlying
commonly treated as though it denoted a human affairs and concerns (p. 244). I am
constant possibility of apprehension and not saying that human life is senseless, but
a permanent background to the varieties that we cannot make sense of it (p. 244).
of categorical thought, is itself an idio- Needham ends his book with this aphorism:
cratic and problematical construct [ pp. The solitary comprehensible fact about
171-1721. human experience is that it is incompre-
Indeed, Needham suggests that some lan- hensible.
guages may have no verbal concepts that In the Introduction to his book Needham
are at all equivalent to the acceptations of addresses a plea to dissentient colleagues in
experience upon which we have relied in social anthropology: that they should
assessing the status of belief (p. 172),and recognize a problem whether or not they
the outside observer cannot justifiably accept his conclusions. I think that most
presume a distinction between experience anthropologists who read this stimulating
and belief (p. 174). To the ext ent . . . that book will acknowledge that Needham has
the concept of beiief depends on that of made an impressive case for thinking serious-
experience, Lby-Bruhls invalidation of ex- ly about belief and not taking the term for
perience as a term of universal application, granted. We are in his debt for doing so. One
in the comparative analysis of alien con- may anticipate that many ethnographers will
cepts, is a further indication that belief henceforth show greater circumspection in
cannot be regarded as a natural resemblance talking about beliefs. Further, Needhams
among men and is not to be expected among inquiry is very likely to stimulate discussion
their collective representations (p. 175). about our understanding of human nature,
In the last chapter of the essay, Needham o u r epistemological assumptions, the
urges that the use of the word belief be significance of analytic philosophy for an-
abandoned in ethnographical reports, or in thropology, and a host of other matters.
comparative epistemology (p. 193). I suspect, moreover, that a number of
Needham once again asserts his opinion anthropologists will be impressed, and quite
that conceptions of human capacities are possibly persuaded, by Needhams argument
represented, with immense variation, in the regarding the unreality of belief as an experi-
categories of natural languages, and it is to ence. I think that many of us will agree that
language that we have t o look for the there is no distinct feeling or emotion that
formulation of problems and their resolu- distinguishes belief, and that Needham pre-
tion (p. 211). An empirical philosophy sents a telling case for concluding that belief
will be advanced by a universal comparative is not a distinct and discriminable experi-
GENERAL, APPLIED AND THEORETICAL 865
ence. But I suspect that many anthropol- number of twentieth century philosophers
ogists will be far less favorably disposed (Wittgenstein included) have opted for a
toward Needhams argument about the non- dispositional approach to belief, and they
existence of a universal human capacity for have made an interesting case for their point
belief and the radical skepticism and relativ- of view.
ism he espouses. Needham attempts to refute the dis-
Some anthropologists may call for a positional theory by attacking the idea that
common sense approach to the problem belief dispositions have duration:
of a capacity for belief. When we talk about If we inquire further into the mani-
a capacity for belief, they might ask, are festations of the belief disposition, we
we not talking about three capacities? A find that it has certain rather interesting
capacity to generate statements about the characteristics. It has duration, says Witt-
world, a capacity t o remember such state- genstein, and this independently of the
ments, and a capacity to deem them true. duration of its expression in a sentence,
Are we to doubt that all normal men for example. How do we know this? Well,
everywhere have those capacities? Do not there are recurrent acts and utterances
which we regularly designate as signs or
men regularly exercise those capacities? The expressions of belief. These are the
experiences of many anthropologists would evidences that we start from when we
lead them to conclude that men do have identify a persistent state of mind. But
such capacities and that the exercise of them what comes in between these recurrent
is important for culturally organized social signs? Nothing that we know of. And if
life. Whether or not all peoples have distinct we lack such evidence during the inter-
terms for the capacities that s u m to what we missions, in what consists the duration?
call belief is, in this view, immaterial and [p. 1041.
irrelevant. Elsewhere Needham writes: Does one ever
The view sketched above could be related at all say that one has believed something
to more sophisticated suppositions about uninterruptedly? Surely one does n o t . . .
symboling. Anthropologists maintain that all (p. 105). But this line of argument leaves me
normal men everywhere have highly evolved unconvinced.
capacities to create, manipulate, and store If man were burdened by the necessity of
symbols. These capacities and their realiza- having to keep all of his beliefs uninter-
tion are crucial for the possibility of a ruptedly in his conscious awareness, he
human form of existence. Through the would be rather limited BS to what he could
generation of symbols and their storage and retain. Fortunately, we have excellent
transmission in existential and normative storage facilities, and we can file things away
statements the experiences of past genera- in complex archives, retrieving them when
tions are utilized and built upon by succeed- we need them. I believe that studded snow
ing generations. Each generation is freed tires are useful on ice; but in August my tires
both from the burden of having to solve all and my belief are safely tucked away.
problems de nouo by trial and error and
from rigid dependence on in-born mechan-
isms. The capacity for belief is one aspect of References Cited
mans ability to symbol and, in this view, it Goodenough, Ward H.
clearly constitutes a natural resemblance 1963 Cooperation in Change. New
among men. York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Some anthropologists might link the Hahn, Robert A.
above considerations to the matter of dis- 1973 Understanding Beliefs: An h a y
position. In the section of his essay dealing on the Methodology of the Statement
with criteria for belief, Needham attempts to and Analysis of Belief Systems. Cur-
refute several posited criteria In my opinion rent Anthropology 14:207-229.
he does a skillful job in challenging most of Leach. Edmund R.
1967 Virgin Birth. Proceedings of the
them. But I do not think that he is con- Royal Anthropological Institute
vincing when it comes to dismissing dis- 1966:39-50.
position. Disposition, however, is a 1968 Correspondence: Virgin Birth.
criterion of considerable importance. A Man (new series) 3:655-656.
866 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [76,1974]