STRUCTURALISM- a common name for a number of areas in the humanities of the 20th century, associated with the identification of the structure, i.e. the totality of such multi-level relationships between the elements of the whole, which are able to maintain stability under various changes and transformations. The development of structuralism included a number of stages: 1) the formation of the method - primarily in structural linguistics; 2) wider dissemination of the method; 3) blurring of the method as a result of its inclusion in non-scientific contexts; 4) criticism and self-criticism, the transition to post-structuralism . Only the periods of "formation" and "distribution" have a clear chronological certainty; other stages often overlap (as happened in France). Linguistics was the first to search for and reveal structures in its material, which is typical for the concept of F. de Saussure. Structural analysis methods took shape in the 1920s–40s. in psychology (Gestalt psychology), in literary criticism (Russian formal school), in linguistics (the three main structuralist schools in linguistics are the Prague Linguistic Circle, Copenhagen Glossematics and Yale Descriptivism). Structural linguistics requires the rejection of introspectionism on the one hand and the positivist summation of facts on the other. Its program is connected with the transition from the stage of empirical collection of facts to the stage of theory building; from diachrony (stringing facts into chains) to synchrony (linking them into something whole), from separate and disparate to "invariant" (relatively stable).

Thus, structuralism arose first as a scientific methodology developed in linguistics (R. Jakobson and N. Trubetskoy), and then spread to other areas: cultural studies by Yu.M. Lotman and the Tartu semiotic school, ethnography by K. Levi-Strauss (Levi-Strauss's conversion to structuralism was influenced by Jacobson during their joint work in New York in 1943). At the same time, J. Lacan (psychoanalysis), R. Barthes (literary criticism, mass culture), M. Foucault (history of science) in France spread some methods of linguo-semiotic analysis to other areas of culture. The transfer of linguo-semiotic concepts and terms to other areas of humanitarian knowledge was not an accident: linguistics at that time was the most developed area of ​​humanitarian knowledge, language was considered as the most reliable way of fixing human thought and experience in any field. In addition, the general trend of all thought in the 20th century. rushed towards the analysis and criticism of language, and not the analysis and criticism of consciousness. Therefore, it is quite understandable that the conceptual style of this developed area was borrowed by other areas of humanitarian knowledge. However, neither Levi-Strauss nor Lotman (nor, it seems, Yu. Kristeva or Ts. Todorov) claimed this linguistic methodology to be philosophical and did not replace philosophy.

So, for Lotman, the main point was the installation of one of his articles of the 1960s, which was called “Literary criticism should be a science”. Gradually, this motto develops into a broader program. When analyzing literary works, he was engaged in their systematic description - initially by levels, and then - taking into account the interaction of levels. He considered complex cultural objects and phenomena (for example, the views of Radishchev, Karamzin, or an ordinary enlightened nobleman of the 1820s) as “secondary signifying systems”, tried to present them as a single system, looking for explanatory patterns even for seemingly mutually exclusive elements. (denial and affirmation of the immortality of the soul in one of Radishchev's treatises).

In a similar way, Levi-Strauss used elements of linguistic and linguo-semiotic methodology to study the unconscious cultural systems of primitive peoples. The basis of the method was the isolation of the so-called. binary oppositions (nature - culture, plant - animal, raw - boiled), consideration of complex cultural phenomena (for example, kinship systems) as bundles of differential features (following Jakobson, who singled out the phoneme in this way as the smallest meaningful unit in structural linguistics). All cultural systems of the life of primitive peoples - the rules of marriage, terms of kinship, myths, rituals, masks - are considered by Levi-Strauss as languages, as unconsciously functioning signifying systems, within which a kind of message exchange, information transfer takes place.

Among French researchers, Levi-Strauss was the only one who openly considered himself a structuralist, agreeing with the definition of his philosophical and methodological program as "Kantianism without a transcendental subject." Not the unity of transcendental apperception, but the impersonal mechanisms of the functioning of culture, similar to linguistic ones, were the basis of his program of justification of knowledge. Thus, already in Levi-Strauss we see - at the level of philosophical and methodological justifications - those main features that, with certain reservations and clarifications, can be generally attributed to French structuralism as a stage in the deployment of structuralist problems: reliance on structure in opposition to "stories"; reliance on language in opposition to the subject; reliance on the unconscious as opposed to consciousness.

In line with the general desire for scientificity in the 1960s. Lacan's reading of Freud also appeared, presented as a "return to Freud." It is based on Lacan's idea of ​​the similarity or analogy between the structures of language and the mechanisms of action of the unconscious. Developing these thoughts, already contained in Freud, Lacan treats the unconscious as a special kind of language (more precisely, he considers the unconscious structured like a language) and considers the linguistic material supplied by the psychoanalytic session as the only reality that the psychoanalyst must deal with, unraveling conflicts in functioning. unconscious mechanisms of the psyche and human behavior.

Barth applies some methods of linguo-semiotic analysis to the description of social and cultural phenomena of contemporary European society. The discovery of "sociology" in the phenomena of modern life - fashion, food, urban structure, journalism - becomes the goal of his work in the 1950s and 60s. This is a revolutionary act that rips off the veneer of naturalness and self-impliedness, neutrality, from bourgeois culture. First half of the 1960s - this is for Barthes a period of passion for scientific semiotics and the construction of his own version of semiotics for the study of secondary, connotative meanings given by the functioning of language in culture and society.

Foucault tests some of the principles of structuralism on the material of the history of science. Thus, in Words and Things (1966), he puts relations of a sign-semiotic type as the basis for identifying "epistems" - invariant structures that determine the main possibilities of thought and cognition in a particular cultural period. In accordance with the general structuralist project, the existence and knowledge of "man" is made dependent on the existence and knowledge of "language": the brighter the language functions, the faster the image of man disappears from modern culture.

Thus, the tendencies of structuralism were interdisciplinary and international, but they were carried out each time in different circumstances. In the USSR, structural-semiotic studies of the 1960s. were a protest against the dogmatism and at the same time the subjectivism of official science. Circumstances developed in France that gave rise to a favorable ideological climate for the widespread dissemination of structuralist ideas. It was a protest against the dominance of traditional philosophical subjectivism in its rationalistic (Descartes) and irrationalistic (Sartre) versions. The existentialist impulse after the 2nd World War was exhausted, the pathos of personal choice in a borderline situation became irrelevant, the tendencies of scientific philosophy and philosophy of science (logical positivism) were presented extremely poorly, and therefore structuralism became a means to designate a different, more objective human and philosophical position. .

An important role in this turning point was played by the conceptual shift carried out within the framework of French Marxism by L. Althusser (he taught at the Higher Normal School and had a direct impact on many representatives of the French intelligentsia). Althusser's interest in Marx of the Capital period (the same shift of interest occurred within the framework of Soviet Marxism in the 1960s), in multiple structural causality (surdetermination as opposed to the one-sided dependence of the superstructure on the basis), the very formulation of the idea of ​​"theoretical anti-humanism" played an important role in the crystallization of structuralist ideas and strengthening their public sound.

Thus, the problematic commonality of diverse areas of work in various fields has reached the greatest clarity by ser. 1960s and began to decline at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. Structuralist methodology and methodology in France turned out to be, as it were, a means of throwing across the abyss in a situation of ideological vacuum after the self-exhaustion of existentialism. When this work was completed, the ideological climate changed, another era began. The call to science was over, and the search for structures was replaced, on the contrary, by the search for everything that in one way or another broke out of the framework of structures. In this sense, the advent of post-structuralism did not mean the exhaustion of structuralism as a scientific method, which retained its intra-scientific significance, but ceased to be a subject of public interest.

The events of May 1968 became a symptom of important social changes. The thesis that “structures do not take to the streets” was supposed to show that the era of public interest in the impersonal and objective was over. Everything that somehow constitutes the "wrong side" of the structure comes to the fore among intellectuals. On the barricades of student unrest, "body" and "power" mattered more than "language" and "objectivity." A short period of the 1st half of the 1970s. assumed attempts at a group fight against global power (such were the tasks of the prison information group, in which Foucault worked for several years). However, the public upheaval subsided and completely different emotions and motives blossomed in the vacated place. It was a return from scientific interest to ethics (but no longer existentialist), sometimes micro-group, but more often - the ethics of individual escaping from power through constant renaming, the ethics of permissiveness (the hedonism flourishing, the variety of justifications for desire and pleasure).

All structuralists, with the exception of Levi-Strauss, are characterized by noticeable conceptual shifts, one way or another connected with social changes at the turn of the 1960s and 70s. Barthes, Lacan, Foucault were perceived first as supporters of structuralism, then as supporters of post-structuralism. The general periodization can be conditionally represented as follows: 1950–60s. - structuralism (sometimes - pre-structuralism); 1970s – coexistence of structuralism and post-structuralism; 1970s–80s - post-structuralism.

So, structuralism is not a philosophy, but a scientific methodology, together with a general set of worldview ideas. Structuralism and post-structuralism have never been systematized doctrines. However, structuralism was characterized by clarity and generality of the methodological program, which was obvious even in the process of its blurring; poststructuralism existed more as a common space for polemics than as a commonality of programs, and depended on structuralism as an object of criticism or denial. French structuralism took the place of what was absent in France logical positivism , although in the actual practice of incarnation he had little in common with him. Structuralism has problematic echoes with neorationalism . Structuralism contributed to the modification of phenomenology in its French version (grafting language problems onto the trunk of phenomenology, an incentive to search for the interaction of explanatory strategies with those who understand); he gave occasions (especially around the works of Foucault) for a fairly fruitful polemic with frankfurt school .

Literature:

1. Levi-Strauss K. Primitive thinking. M., 1994;

2. He is. Structural anthropology. M., 1985;

3. Lakan J. Function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis. M., 1995;

4. He is. The instance of the letter in the unconscious, or the fate of the mind after Freud. M., 1997;

5. Bart R. Fav. work. M., 1989, 1994;

6. He is. Mythology. M., 1996;

7. Foucault M. Words and things. Archeology of the Humanities. M., 1977, 1996;

8. He is. The birth of the clinic M., 1998;

9. Lotman Yu.M. About poets and poetry. SPb., 1996;

10. He is. Fav. articles in 3 volumes. Tallinn, 1992–1993;

11. Uspensky B.A. Fav. works in 3 volumes, vols. 1–2. M, 1996–1997;

12. Moscow-Tartu semiotic school. History. Memories. Reflections. M., 1998;

13. Avtonomova N.S. Philosophical problems of structural analysis in the humanities. M., 1977;

14. Ilyin I. Poststructuralism. Deconstructivism. Postmodernism. M., 1996;

15. Structuralism: "for" and "against". M., 1975;

16. Levi Strauss C. Pensee Sauvage. P., 1962;

17. Idem. mythologiques. P., 1962–1968;

18. Lacan J. Ecrits. P., 1966;

19. Barthes R. Essais critiques. P., 1964;

20. Idem. System de la mode. P., 1967;

21. Qu'est-ce que le structuralisme? P., 1968;

22. Structuralism and since. From Levi-Strauss to Derrida. J. Sturrock (ed.). Oxf., 1979. See also Art. K. Levi-Strauss, R. Barthes, M. Foucault, J. Lacan or T. to them.

I.S. Avtonomova

Levy-Bruhl Lucien (1857-1939) - French philosopher and psychologist, researcher of primitive culture. He put forward the theory of primitive "pre-logical" thinking. Levy-Bruhl believed that the man of primitive society thought in a fundamentally different way than modern man. "Pre-logical" thinking is based on specific, different from modern, logical laws. Primitive man comprehends the world, according to Levy-Bruhl, according to the law of participation. In accordance with this law, the object is in a magical relationship with a variety of phenomena. Exploring the law of participation, Levy-Bruhl shows the absence in primitive thinking of the category of a single, identical:

« The collective representations of primitive people are not, like our concepts, the product of intellectual processing in the proper sense of the word. They contain emotional and motor elements as other components, and, what is especially important, instead of logical relations (inclusions and exclusions), they imply more or less clearly defined, usually vividly felt participations (participations).

Something one can be at the same time something else, for this it does not need a gradual, physical change. Metamorphosis is already embedded in the habit of thought. For example, a deer can be both named and perceived as wheat, since the well-being of the tribe depends both on the number of deer killed and on the amount of wheat harvested. The reduction of two things is possible not on the basis of visual assimilation, their reduction is based on specific events, actions that are similar at the level of calculation of efforts, i.e. on the basis of their plastic proportionality. Levy-Bruhl also reveals the special role of memory in primitive thinking. He's writing: « Memory performs in them those operations that in other societies depend on the logical mechanism ».

This also implies a special attitude towards language. As you know, a logical proposition is built on the principle of selection and selection of features. Here, the language does not distinguish between the single and the plural, the animate and the inanimate, and therefore an unlimited number of components are typed in the statement. Such propositional thinking is continuous, since participation is built on an unlimited number of combinations between two objects. A free relation to things, when one is already seen, if necessary, transformed into another, cannot but give rise to a free relation to language. It is known that the languages ​​of primitive tribes are polysynthetic. In addition, they do not have unifying words for species: “tree”, “animal”, etc. « The general tendency of these languages ​​is not to describe the impression received by the perceiving subject, but the form, shape, position, movement ... Languages ​​tend to exhaust the plastic and graphic details of what they want to express ».

Levy-Bruhl cites the notes of Caching, who lived among the Zuni:
"I brought my hands back to their original functions, making them do all the things that they did in prehistoric times, when the hands were so connected with the intellect that they really were part of it." The extreme specialization of verbs is the result of the role that hand movements play in the mental activity of primitive peoples, i.e. language recreates a pattern of gestures. Among the Zuni, the porcupine ideogram repeats the way of digging the earth.

And here are a couple of Chinese ideograms:
man = rice field + wrestling
ripples = boat + ship

From these examples, it is clear that words are not something fixed and established once and for all; on the contrary, a vocal gesture is described in the same way as a motor gesture. Despite all the commonness of the reasons according to which, according to the law of communion, a deer can be called wheat and vice versa, it remains unclear why, nevertheless, in the language one can so easily pass into another. Such a transition cannot be carried out only within the language. This means that, and the attitude to things is very unfixed and arbitrary. The sequence of ideas for primitive thinking is a sufficient basis for linking objects, that is, for the formation of history, myth. On the one hand, this connection is random, on the other hand, what we can call a random connection is the result of a certain experience provoked by a collision with an object. The result and purpose of two activities (harvesting wheat and hunting deer) is survival by obtaining two kinds of food. When wheat is called deer, it looks like the deer that is killed and the wheat that is harvested are already mentally brought together, turned into each other. However, this hardly means that they do not differ as singularities. Just a deer that is killed is already wheat that has been harvested or should be harvested. And the harvested wheat is a deer that is killed or not yet. It turns out a sequential chain: in order to have food, we collect wheat, kill a deer and collect again, etc. But if, after having been harvested, we still hunt, and all this is food production (if these two products are mainly consumed), then why not consider deer and wheat as different faces of the same experience of eating food, and processes gathering and hunting - various plastic methods to obtain what satisfies hunger. This does not mean at all that there is no difference between the taste of venison and wheat. A reasonable question is: if there are two words for two faces of the same experience, then why use one instead of the other? And in general, if there is only one experience, why do we need two words? Perhaps, then, to imply the following: the food is not only what lies (wheat), but also venison, which means that it is not enough to say about wheat “this is wheat”, since we eat both; one should say about wheat: “this is venison wheat”, and in order not to say two words, it is enough to insert one into the other, which is necessary for its semantic deployment. Memory does not get rid of its components, it pulls them into speech, trying not to lose them through constant iteration. Thus, the memory of the sequence is permanently preserved (that, in addition to harvesting wheat, we also hunt), as well as the operation of turning the present into the future or past: now we have harvested wheat, then we will hunt for the same purpose, today’s wheat is all the same that tomorrow's deer.

Now we will also briefly consider the positions associated with the work in the field of studying primitive tribes of another no less famous scientist K. Levi-Strauss.

Levi-Strauss(Levi-Strauss) Claude (b. 1908) - French ethnographer, anthropologist and sociologist, one of the main representatives of French structuralism, founder of structural anthropology. The artist's son, Levi-Strauss was receptive to aesthetic influences. Musical education also contributed to this, especially acquaintance with Wagner, whom Levi-Strauss later recognizes as the ancestor of structural study. myths, and with the Russian composer and conductor I. F. Stravinsky. Although the subject of Levi-Strauss's research is the thinking and culture of primitive peoples, his scientific research influenced the development art history, literary criticism and aesthetic theory in general. Studying the relationship between the biological and the social in human behavior, Levi-Strauss recognizes the main presence of formal institutions in relationships between people, the influence of traditions, rules of marriage, kinship, myths on human behavior as a special kind of language that models the structure of social institutions. In his structural anthropology, an important place is occupied by the interpretation of myth as the fundamental content of collective consciousness, the basis for the stability of social structures. Levi-Strauss understands rationality as a property of the world itself, of things themselves, and not as a property introduced by the subject.

Levi-Strauss owns the development of the structures of thinking of primitive peoples objectified in myths and the theory explaining them. A feature of mythological thinking, according to Levi-Strauss, is its relative autonomy from social infrastructures, its closed nature. The understanding of myths is ensured by the fact that each of them serves as a metaphor another, revealed as a result of internal recoding, the model of which is the all-understandable structure of music . It is no coincidence that Levi-Strauss builds his work "Mythological" by analogy with the principles of musical polyphony:"Aria of the Nest Destroyer", "Fugue of the Five Senses", "Possum Cantata". The studies of Levi-Strauss shed light on the unity of the aesthetic culture of mankind. The commonality of the social conditions of the primitive peoples of America, Southeast and East Asia, Oceania is reflected in the commonality of the structures of their myths and primitive fine art, in particular, in the symmetrical spread of the image on the masks and face (tattoo). As the myth loses its functional meaning, art is formed on its basis, which uses its content structures as formal supports, filling them with new content. Although a number of provisions of Levi-Strauss' structural anthropology remain debatable, the structural research methods developed by him are used along with information theory and semiotics in the analysis of literary texts. Many ideas and research programs of Levi-Strauss have something in common with the approaches developed in Soviet science in the 1920s and 1930s. G. G. Shpet, P. G. Bogatyrev. O. M. Freudenberg, as well as with aesthetic research Eisenstein and research Bakhtin. The main works of Levi-Strauss: Structural Anthropology (1958), Savage Mind (1962), Mythological (1964-71), Ways of Masks (1975).

Based on the foregoing, one should recognize the significant achievements of the mentioned scientists in the field of analysis of the features of mythological thinking, reflection of space and time in myths.

The structural approach, proposed by me more than a quarter of a century ago, is often characterized by my Anglo-Saxon colleagues as "idealism" or "mentalism". I was even branded as a Hegelian. Some critics have accused me of treating thought patterns as the cause of culture, and sometimes even of mixing the two. They also believe that I am tackling the structure of the human mind in order to find what they ironically call "Levi-Strausian universals." In this state of affairs, indeed, the study of the cultural contexts in which the mind operates would be of little interest. But if that were the case, why would I have become an anthropologist, instead of following a philosophical career, in line with my academic background? And why do I pay so much attention to the smallest ethnographic details in my books? Why do I strive to accurately identify the plants and animals known by each community; the various technical purposes for which they are intended; and if these plants or animals are edible, how are they prepared for consumption - that is, boiled, stewed, steamed, baked, grilled, pan-fried, or even dried or smoked? For years I was surrounded by terrestrial and celestial charts, which enabled me to trace the position of the stars and constellations at different latitudes and at different times of the year; treatises on geology, geography and meteorology; works on botany; books about mammals and birds.

The reason for this is very simple: it is impossible to undertake any kind of research without first collecting and checking all the data. As I have often noted, no general principle or deductive process enables us to anticipate the contingent circumstances that form the history of each human group, the particular features of its environment, or the unpredictable way each of them has chosen to interpret particular historical events or aspects of the natural environment.

In addition, anthropology is an empirical science. Each culture is a unique situation that can be described and understood only at the cost of the most diligent attention. Only such a searching eye reveals not only facts, but also criteria, varying from culture to culture, according to which each assigns meaning to certain animals or certain plant species, minerals, celestial bodies and other natural phenomena in order to build a logical system. Empirical study allows one to approach the structure. For even if the same elements are retained here and there, experience proves that these identical elements can be attributed to different causes; and vice versa, different elements sometimes perform the same function. Each culture builds on a small number of distinctive features of its environment, but it is impossible to predict what they are or for what purpose they will be taken. Moreover, the raw material offered by the environment for observation and reflection is so rich and varied that the mind can only comprehend a fraction of it. The mind can use it to develop some system in an infinite number of other conceivable systems; nothing predetermines a privileged fate for one of them.

Thus, at first we stumble upon the factor of arbitrariness, from which arise difficulties that experience alone can solve. Nevertheless, although the choice of elements may be arbitrary, they become organized into a system, and the connections between them form a whole. In Untamed Thought, I wrote that "the principle underlying classification can never be postulated in advance; it can only be discovered a posteriori by ethnographic observation—in other words, by experience." The coherence of any classification system is strictly dependent on constraints specific to the functioning of the human mind. These constraints determine the formation of symbols and explain their opposition and the way they are connected.

Therefore, ethnographic observation does not force us to choose between two hypotheses: either a plastic mind passively shaped by external influences, or universal psychological laws that give rise everywhere, induce the same qualities and act regardless of history and the specifics of the environment. Rather, what we observe and try to describe is an attempt to realize something like a compromise between certain historical trends and the specific characteristics of the environment, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, mental requirements, which in each area are a continuation of previous requirements of the same kind. By adapting to each other, these two orders of reality are mixed, thus creating a meaningful whole.

There is nothing Hegelian in such a concept. Instead of coming from nowhere, in the mind of a philosopher, who would probably make a cursory survey limited to a small part of the globe and a few centuries of the history of ideas, these limitations of the human mind are discovered by an inductive process. We can only reach them by patiently considering how they are reflected, in similar or dissimilar ways, in the ideologies of dozens or even hundreds of societies. Moreover, we do not regard these restraints as acquired at once and for all, and we do not take them as a key that will allow us, in a psychoanalytic way, to unlock all locks henceforth. Instead, we are led by linguists: they are well aware that common properties can be identified in the world of grammar, and they hope that they can discover linguistic universals. But linguists at the same time know that the logical system formed by such universals will be much poorer than any particular grammar, and will never be able to replace it. They also know that learning a language in general and individual languages ​​that have existed or still exist is an endless matter and that a finite set of rules will never exhaust the general properties of these languages. When the universals are comprehended, they will act as open structures: it will always be possible to replenish, expand or correct the previous definitions.

Thus, two kinds of determinism operate simultaneously in social life; and it is not surprising that, since they are different in nature, each of them, from the point of view of the other, may appear arbitrary. Behind every ideological construction, there are older constructions. And they echo back in time, back to a hypothetical moment when hundreds of thousands, maybe more years ago, humanity stumbled over and expressed its first myths. And it is also true that at every stage of this complex process every ideological construct is modified by the prevailing technological and economic circumstances; they distort, deform it in several directions. No general mechanism, which may underlie the various ways in which the human mind operates in different societies, at different stages of historical development, operates in a vacuum. These mental gears must mesh with other mechanisms; observation never reveals the separate action of the parts of a whole mechanism; we can only confirm the results of their interaction.

These views, which are by no means philosophical, are inspired by the strictest ethnographic examination of any particular problem. I will try to illustrate this practice with examples taken from mythological analysis with which I have been dealing for twenty years.

* * *

The Heiltsuk Indians, or Bella Bella, are closely related to their southern neighbors on the coast of British Columbia, the Kwakiutl. Both groups tell the story of a child - a boy or a girl - being kidnapped by a supernatural cannibal, usually a woman, called Kawaka by the Bella Bella and Dzonokwa by the Kwakiutl. As in the Kwakiutl story, the bella bella explain that the child manages to escape; the cannibal is killed or put to flight. Her considerable wealth goes to the father of the hero or heroine and he distributes it. This explains the origin of the potlatch.

Sometimes the Bella Bella versions differ from the Kwakiutl versions in a curious incident. The supernatural helper instructs the girl or boy how to get rid of the cannibal: when the cannibal, as usual, at the lowest point of low tide goes to collect shellfish, the child should collect siphons - the cannibal does not eat this part of the shellfish, she throws them out; the child needs to put these organs on his fingertips and brush them off at the cannibal, who will be so frightened that she will fall back into the abyss and die.

Why would a mighty cannibal be afraid of something so harmless and insignificant as the siphons of mollusks - those soft little rods through which mollusks take in and release water? (These siphons are also quite handy for holding a steamed oyster while dipping it in melted butter, a famous specialty of a restaurant near Times Square where I lived in New York.) The bella bella myths don't include this point. To solve the problem, we must apply the indispensable rule of structural analysis: when a version of a myth contains a detail that seems anomalous, we should ask ourselves if this version does not contradict another version that is usually not so far removed from it.

Terms deviant And normal here should be understood relatively. The version chosen for correlation will be called "direct", and relative to it others will be "inverted". But it would equally be possible to proceed in the other direction, except in certain cases (examples are provided in my editions of the Science of Mythologies) where the transformation can only take place in a certain direction. In this case, the "direct" version is easy to localize. She is found among the Chilcothin, who live in the inland part, east of the mountains of the coast. But they were well acquainted with the bella bella and often visited them on the other side of the mountains. Undoubtedly, their languages ​​differed, the Chilcotin language belongs to the Athabaskan family. In all other respects, the Chilcoteen were similar to the tribes of the coast, from whom they borrowed many features of their social organization.

What do we learn from the Chilcotin myth? It says that a baby boy, crying all the time (like the little girl in one version of bella bella), is kidnapped by Owl, a powerful sorcerer. He treats the boy well, and he grows up, content with his lot. When years later friends and parents open his haven, he refuses to follow them. Finally he was convinced. When the Owl goes in pursuit of a small detachment, the boy frightens him by putting the horns of a mountain goat on his fingers and waving them like claws. He took with him all the dentalia shells (small, white, single-shelled mollusks that look like tiny elephant tusks), of which the Owl had been the sole owner until that time.

It is in this way that the Indians obtained these shells, which are the most precious thing they possess.

Since the rest of the Chilcotin myth is irrelevant to our discussion, I will omit it, along with the Salish-speaking versions of the Bella Coola, neighbors of both the Bella Bella and the Chilcotin. In these versions, the case of the mountain goat's horns is preserved and the bella bella myth is transformed, giving the cannibal, which the bella bella call Snenik, characteristics that are strictly opposite to those of the bella bella and the Kwakiutl. It is from this special point of view that these versions should be analyzed.

Let's confine ourselves to the bella bella and chilcotin myths, because they are organized in the same way and only the appropriate connotations attributed to each element are inverted. A crying boy among the Chilcotins, a crying girl in a more developed version of the bella bella is abducted by a supernatural being: in one case a cannibal in human form, in the other a benevolent sorcerer in the form of a bird. To get rid of the kidnapper, the hero or heroine resorts to the same strategy: they attach artificial claws to their fingers. But these claws are either the horns of a goat or the siphons of a mollusk—in other words, either something hard and harmful coming from the land, or something soft and harmless coming from the sea. As a result, among the Chilcotins, the Owl falls into the water and does not drown, while among the Bella Bella, the ogre falls on the rocks and dies. So the horns and siphons are facilities, leading to goals. But what exactly is this goal? The hero or heroine becomes the first owner of either the dentalia shells or the riches that belong to the cannibal. Now all the mythological and ritual data we have concerning this Kawaka, or Dzonokwa as it is called by the Kwakiutl, testify that all its wealth comes from the land, since it consists of copper plates, furs, processed skins and dried meat. In other myths of bella bella and kwakiutl, the same cannibal - an inhabitant of land, an inhabitant of forests and mountains - does not catch fish, but constantly steals salmon from the Indians.

Thus, each myth explains how a certain end was achieved by equally certain means. And since we are considering two myths, each has a distinctive means and a distinctive purpose. It is noteworthy that one of the means turns out to be close to water (siphons of mollusks), and the other to earth (horns of a goat). The first leads to a goal (the wealth of the cannibal) that has to do with the land, and the second leads to a goal (the shells of dentalia) that has a marine character. As a result, the "water remedy" leads, so to speak, to the "land goal"; and vice versa, "a means of land" - to a "water goal".

In addition, there are additional connections between the means from one myth and the goal or result from another. clam siphon, means in the bella bella myth, and dentalia shells, goal in the Chilcotin myth, obviously have something in common, both coming from the sea. However, this is opposed by the role assigned to them in native culture: for the Chilcoteen, dentalia shells are far from the most precious thing the sea has to offer; and the myth of bella bella does not attach any value to the siphons of mollusks even as food, since the ogre throws them away without eating.

Well, what about the horns of a mountain goat, means in the myth of the Chilcotin, and the earthly riches of the cannibal, the acquisition of which is result in the bella bella myth? Unlike sea shells, both belong to the land world. Goat horns, however, are not edible, but are used to make ceremonial objects - those wonderfully crafted and sculpted spoons that we admire in museums. These are works of art and emblematic objects; they are wealth. In addition, while not being edible, spoons, like the clam siphon, are a convenient means (cultural, not natural) to bring food to the mouth of the eater. If, nevertheless, despite the common origin, the remedy from one myth and the result from another myth are opposed, then a parallel is established between the result from the first myth and the remedy from the second, which also have a common origin (from land, not from the sea), just opposite.

I just outlined the dialectical connection between the two myths of neighboring tribes - this scheme can easily be enriched and refined. However, this is enough to demonstrate that there are rules that allow one to transform one myth into another, and that these complex rules are still intelligible. Where do these rules come from? We do not invent them in the course of analysis. They are, so to speak, isolated from the myths. Once formulated by the researcher, they come to the surface as a visible manifestation of the laws that govern the train of thought of people when they hear their neighbors expound one of their myths. Listeners may borrow myth, but not without distorting it through mental operations beyond their control. They will appropriate it so they don't feel inferior, while remodeling it, consciously or unconsciously, until it becomes their own.

Such manipulations do not occur at random. The inventory of American mythology(1), which I have been busy with for many years, clearly shows that the various myths result from a transformation subject to certain rules of symmetry and inversion: the myths reflect each other along a list of axes. To explain this phenomenon, one must accept the conclusion that mental operations obey laws similar to those that operate in the physical world. These constraints, which keep ideological constructions within an isomorphism where only certain kinds of transformation are possible, exemplify the first type of determinism I mentioned.

* * *

However, this is only half the story: other questions remain unanswered. If we decide to take the Chilcotin myth as a reference, then we must ask why these Indians needed to explain the origin of the dentalia shells, and why they did it in such a bizarre way, giving them a terrestrial rather than an oceanic origin? Assuming also that some necessity required the bella bella to change the image of the mountain goat's horns used as claws, one must understand why they had to choose mollusk siphons from many objects in their natural environment that could perform the same function? Why, finally, did the bella bella turn out to be uninterested in the origin of dentalia shells, turning all their attention to another kind of wealth? These questions oblige us to turn to the second type of determinism, which introduces external constraints based on ideology. But neither the characteristics of the natural environment, nor the way of life, nor even the social and political circumstances were exactly the same between the tribes of the interior of the mainland and the tribes of the coast.

Dentalia shells were highly valued by the tribes of the interior, the eastern neighbors of the Chilcotin, who belonged to the language branch of the settlements. They obtained these shells from the Chilcotin and therefore called them "dental people" (Teit, 1909, p. 759). Consequently, in order to protect their monopoly and give it more prestige in the eyes of their neighbors, the Chilcoteen had a direct interest in making others believe that they possessed an inexhaustible supply of dentalia shells that appeared in their territory as a result of supernatural events especially favorable to them.

In doing so, they concealed a completely different reality: in fact, the Chilcotin obtained dentalia shells through trade, through the mountain paths, with coastal tribes, who had direct access to the products of the sea. According to old reports, these coast tribes were on friendly terms with the Chilcoteen, whom they never fought, "as they rarely ventured far from their native home on the seashore or on the river reach, and seem to have experienced awe, entering into forbidden and unknown mountain stronghold" (Teit, 1909, p. 761). Indeed, the Salish of the interior, like the Thompson and Ker-d-Alen tribes, unlike the Chilcotin, were not aware of the actual source of the dentalia shells; they had a series of myths that is both a symmetrical and inverted form of the myths owned by the suppliers of these shells. They say that in ancient times dentalia shells existed in their territory and that after certain events they disappeared, so that at present the Indians can obtain these precious objects only through trade.

A completely different situation has developed with regard to products and land, and the sea among the tribes of the coast. For them, the products of the sea belonged to technological and economic activities: fishing or collecting shells was a common occupation of the Indians of the coast, who either ate these products themselves or sold them to the Chilcotin. As my neo-Marxist colleagues would say, these benefits were an integral part of their practice. On the other hand, the coastal Indians paid with seafood for sushi products coming from those mountains where they did not dare to go and whose inhabitants visited them in order to exchange sushi products for products of the sea. These inverse connections represent a formal analogy to those that we have found between the respective myths at the ideological level: that is, the fact that in myths a means associated with the earth leads to a result associated with the sea; while in the second case - just another roundabout way. Now it becomes clear why the tribes of the coast did not need to "mythologize" sea shells - those belonged to their practice; and also why (if the mythological transformation, as is often the case, takes the form of a chiasm(2)) the shift of the marine element from the category of result to that of means can be appropriately achieved by replacing the siphons of molluscs with the shells of dentalia. Relative to each other, they are in the same doubly inverted relationship, which prevails between the corresponding ecologies of the two types of peoples.

Consider first the horns of the mountain goat. Them sharp end - sharply curved and in this sense convex - makes them dangerous weapons; whereas concave And hollow base allows you to cut spoons out of them and thereby turns them into an integral part of wealth. On the contrary, dentalia shells are considered wealth precisely because of their convex hard outer shell. As for the internal contents of these single-leaved, it is an insignificant mollusk, unsuitable for food. Thus, in all these relationships, dentalia shells are opposed to mollusk siphons - hollow soft tubules, internal appendages of bivalves, which play an important role in the diet of coastal populations. However, the bella bella myth denies any nutritional value of mollusc siphons, which turn out to be (paradoxically) organs that attract attention, but are of no practical interest. So, they can easily be "mythologized" for the opposite reason that leads the people of the inner part to explain the origin of dentalia shells: they are highly valued, but they do not have them; the people of the coast have shellfish, but their siphons are not particularly prized.

The mind cannot remain passive when faced with the technological and economic conditions associated with the natural environment. It doesn't just reflect these conditions; he reacts to them and transforms them into a logical system. In addition, the mind not only reacts directly to environmental conditions, but also realizes that there are various natural environments to which their inhabitants react in their own way. All these environments are integrated into ideological systems that are obedient to others - mental constraints that force groups with different views to follow the same pattern of development. Two examples will allow me to demonstrate this idea.

The first is from the same area as the former: the Seachelt Indians, a Salish language group, settled north of the Fraser River Delta. These Indians are strangely distorting the myth that is common west of the Rocky Mountains - from the Columbia Basin to the Fraser Basin. In its usual form, this is the myth of the Trickster persuading his son or grandson to climb a tree in order to get the feathers of birds nesting in the top. With the help of a magical means, he causes the tree to grow so that the hero cannot descend and ends up being thrown into the sky world. After many adventures, he manages to return to earth, where the Trickster took on the physical form of a hero in order to seduce his wives. In retaliation, the hero orchestrates his evil parent's fall into the river, which carries him to the sea, where selfish supernatural women keep the salmon locked up. These women save the drowning Trickster and invite him to their place. And he destroys their dam by cunning and frees the fish. From that time on, salmon travel freely and annually rise up the rivers, where the Indians catch and eat them.

The fact that salmon are caught during their annual spawning season, when they return from the ocean and travel up the rivers to spawn in fresh water, is no doubt born of experience. From this point of view, the myth reflects the objective conditions that are vital for the native economy, which the myth is intended to explain. But the Sichelts tell the story differently. The father falls into the water at sunset under unknown circumstances; the woman rescues him and sends him back home. He wants to take revenge on his son, whom he considers the cause of his misfortune, and sends the young man to the heavenly world with the same magical means as in other versions. In heaven, the hero meets two old women, to whom he reveals that near their dwelling the river abounds with salmon. In gratitude for this, they help the young man return to earth.

Therefore, in the Seachelt version, the drowning of the Trickster and then his rescue by a woman living downstream replaces the first chain of other versions; so the drowning episode is no longer relevant. On the contrary, the salmon episode is related to adventures in the heavenly world; and this celestial chain follows the aquatic chain, not before it. Finally, in heaven, the question is no longer about the release of fish, but only about the discovery that they are there.

How to explain all these deviations? It can be imagined that the Sichelts tried to repeat the story they first heard from their neighbors - the Thompson Indians, who had a complete, detailed version of the myth; not understanding it, Sichelt confused it all. Such a theory would not take into account the decisive fact: the Sichelts lived in a geographical area different from that of their neighbors who lived further inland; it was impossible to catch salmon on their territory, since there were no rivers suitable for salmon spawning. To fish, the Sichelts had to wade through the Scylis tribes in the middle reaches of the Garrison River - such intrusions sometimes led to bloody conflicts.

Since the Sicheltas did not have salmon, they could not attribute their release to one of their cultural heroes; or, if they did, such liberation might take place not on earth, but in heaven, in an imaginary world where no experience is required. Such a shift renders the release episode meaningless: the Sichelts did not question how the salmon were freed to go up the rivers, a phenomenon contrary to local experience; since there were no salmon in their dominions, the Sichelts (unlike their neighbors) preferred to ascribe to them a metaphysical abode rather than admit them to an actually ecologically inferior position.

If the local ecology entails a change in any part of history, then mental constraints require that other parts of it be changed accordingly. So the story takes a strange turn: the son takes revenge for no apparent reason for the persecution that did not take place; the father visits the inhabitants of the sea without releasing the salmon; the discovery by the son of salmon in the sky replaces the release of them by the father in the ocean, etc.

There is another lesson from the previous example. If a simple one-way relationship prevailed between techno-economic infrastructure and ideology, as between cause and effect, then one would expect that the Sichelt myths explain why there are no salmon in their territory or why, having once possessed them, they lost them to the benefit of their neighbors; or they might not have the salmon myth at all. In reality, however, something quite different is revealed: absent salmon are made mythically present - and thus the idea is promoted that although salmon are present somewhere, they are nonetheless absent exactly where they should be. The mythological model, which contradicts experience, not only does not disappear, it does not even undergo a change that would allow it to be brought closer to experience. It continues to live its own life, and any transformation of it satisfies not the limitations of experience, but mental limitations, completely independent of the first. In our case, the axis with the poles of land and sea - the only "true" axis - from the point of view of the environment, as well as techno-economic activity - fluctuates from horizontal to vertical. The pole of the sea becomes the pole of the sky; the land pole connotes low, not high; the empirical axis becomes imaginary. The shift entails other shifts that have no comprehensible connection with reality, but are the result of a formal necessity.

Thus, the Sichelt myth impressively illustrates two kinds of influence on mythological thinking, of which there are many other examples. I will confine myself to one particularly striking example, since a problem such as the one I have discussed is interpreted in the same way in other ecological and cultural contexts.

For the peoples belonging to the Algonquin linguistic family who lived in the Canadian ecological zone, the porcupine was a real animal. They hunted him tirelessly for his meat, which they were fond of, and also for his needles, which were used by women in embroidery. The porcupine also played a prominent role in mythology. One myth tells of two girls who, walking to a remote village, find a porcupine nesting in a fallen tree. One of the girls pulls out the needles from the poor animal and discards them. An animal in pain magically causes a blizzard, and the girls die from the cold. In another myth, two lonely sisters act as heroines. One day, wandering far from home, they find a porcupine nesting in a fallen tree, and one of the girls turns out to be so stupid that she sits on the rodent's back, so that all its needles are stuck in her ass. For a long time, she fails to recover from her wounds.

Nowadays, the Arapaho - also part of the Algonquian linguistic family - are making the porcupine the hero of a completely different story. According to her, the brothers Sun and Moon are arguing about the type of wife that each of them would like to marry: which is better - a frog or a human girl? Luna, who prefers the latter, turns into a porcupine to seduce an Indian girl. She is so hungry for needles that she climbs higher and higher on a tree, on which the porcupine's refuge is supposedly located. Thanks to this trick, the porcupine manages to lure the girl into the heavenly world, where the Moon regains her human form and marries her.

What are we to do with the differences between these stories, which, with the exception of the porcupine in both, seem to have nothing in common? Widely distributed in the Canadian ecological zone, the porcupine was rarely seen (if not completely absent) on the plateau, where the Arapaho moved several centuries ago. In the new environment, they could not hunt porcupine, and in order to get quills, they had to trade with northern tribes or undertake hunting expeditions to foreign territory. It seems that these two conditions have had an impact both on the technological and economic levels, and on the mythological level. Products made by Arapaho using needles are considered the best in. North America, and their art was deeply saturated with mysticism, which can hardly be found anywhere else. For the Arapaho, needle-finishing was a ritual activity; their women did not undertake this kind of work without fasting and prayer, in the hope of supernatural help, which they considered essential to the success of the work. As far as Arapaho mythology is concerned, we have just seen that it radically changes the characteristics of the porcupine. From a magical animal, an inhabitant of the earth, a master of cold and snow, he becomes - as in neighboring tribes - the animal appearance of a supernatural being, an anthropomorphic, celestial inhabitant, responsible for biological periodicity, and not for meteorological and physical periodicity. The myth does clarify that the Moon's wife becomes the first of the women who tend to have periods regularly, every month, and when pregnant - resolve after a set period of time.

Therefore, when we move from the Northern Algonquins to the Arapaho, the empirical axis - horizontal, connecting near and far - shifts to an imaginary axis - vertical, connecting heaven and earth. This is exactly the same transformation that we have seen in the Salish: it occurs when an animal that is both technologically and economically significant in a particular geographic situation is lost. In addition, as with the Salish, other transformations follow, determined not from the outside, but from the inside. Once we understand that, despite their different source, these transformations are interconnected, that they are structurally part of the same set, it becomes clear that the two stories are in fact the same and that distinct rules allow one to turn into the other. .

In one case, two women are sisters, they belong to different zoological species - a human and an amphibian. The sisters move horizontally from near to far, while the other two women move vertically from low to high. Instead of, like the first heroine, plucking out the quills of the porcupine, the second heroine breaks out of her village, so to speak, with the quills she craves. One girl recklessly throws away needles; the other covets them as precious objects. In the first group of stories, a porcupine nests on a dead tree that has fallen to the ground, while in the second, the same animal climbs up an endlessly growing tree. And if the first porcupine slows down the sisters' journey, then the second cunning makes the heroine climb up faster and faster. One girl bends her back in front of a porcupine; the other reaches out, trying to grab it. The first porcupine is aggressive; the second is a seducer. While the former torments her from behind, the latter deflowers, that is, "pierces" her from the front.

Considered separately, none of these changes can be attributed to the characteristics of the natural environment; all together they result from a logical necessity that connects each of them with the others in a series of operations. If an animal as central to technology and economics as the porcupine is lost in a new environment, it can only retain its role in another world. As a result, low becomes high, horizontal becomes vertical, inside becomes outside, and so on. The need for coherence is so strong that in order to maintain the same structure of connections, people prefer to distort the image of their environment rather than admit that the connections with the actual environment have changed.

* * *

All these examples show how the two kinds of determinism I have mentioned are expressed: one, which is imposed on mythological thinking by the limitations inherent in connection with a particular environment; the other is derived from stable mental constraints independent of the environment. Such an interaction would be difficult to understand if human relationships with the environment and with the limitations inherent in the mind arose from irresistibly separate orders. It is time to consider these mental restraints, the all-encompassing influence of which leads to the assumption that they have a natural basis. If not, then we run the risk of falling into the trap of the old philosophical dualism. The desire to define the biological nature of man in the language of anatomy and physiology in no way alters the fact that his bodily nature is also the environment in which people exercise their abilities; this organic environment is so closely tied to the physical environment that a person comprehends the second only through the first. So, there must be a certain similarity between sense data and their processing in the brain - the means of this comprehension - and the physical world itself.

The essence of what I am trying to define can be illustrated by referring to the distinction in linguistics between "ethical" and "emic" levels. These terms of convenience, derived from phonetic and phonemic, designate two mutually complementary approaches to linguistic sounds: either how they are perceived (or rather thought to be perceived) by the ear, even by acoustic means, or how they are detected after they are described and analyzed, moving from raw acoustic material in depth to its forming units. The anthropologist, following the linguist, seeks to elevate empirical ideologies to the interaction of binary oppositions and to the rules of transformation.

While such a distinction, which may actually exist, is convenient, it would be a mistake to push it too far and give it an objective status. The work of the Russian neuropsychologist A.R. Luria (1976)(3) successfully brings home to us that articulated language is not made up of sounds. He showed that the cerebral mechanisms responsible for the perception of noises and musical sounds are quite different from those that allow us to perceive the so-called sounds of language; and that damage to the left temporal lobe destroys the ability to analyze phonemes, but leaves the musical ear intact. To explain this apparent paradox, one has to recognize that the brain, in linguistic attention, does not highlight sounds, but distinctive features. Moreover, such features are both logical and empirical, because they were recorded on the screen with acoustic devices that cannot be suspected of any mentalism or idealism. Therefore, only the truly "ethical" level is the "emic" level.

Modern studies of the mechanisms of vision suggest similar conclusions. The eye doesn't just photograph objects: it encodes their distinctive characteristics. They do not consist in the qualities that we attribute to the things around us, but in the totality of connections. In mammals, specialized cells in the cerebral cortex perform a kind of structural analysis that, in other animal families, is already being undertaken and even completed by cells in the retina and ganglia. Each cell - retina, ganglia or brain - responds only to stimuli of a certain type: to the contrast between movement and stillness; the presence or absence of color; changes in lightness; on objects whose outlines are positively or negatively distorted; on the direction of movement - straight or sideways, from right to left or vice versa, horizontal or vertical; and so on. Having received all this information, the mind, so to speak, recreates objects that were not really perceived as such. The analytical function of the retina predominates mainly in species without a cerebral cortex, such as the frog; but the same can be said about protein. And among the higher mammals, in which the brain takes over the analytical function, the cells of the cortex only collect those operations that have already been noted by the sense organs. There is every reason to believe that the mechanism of encoding and decoding, which transmits incoming data through several modulators inscribed in the nervous system in the form of binary oppositions, also exists in humans. Therefore, the immediate data of sensory perception are not raw material - an "ethical" reality, which, strictly speaking, does not exist; from the very beginning they are discriminative abstractions of reality and thus belong to the "emic" level.

If we insist on linking to the "ethical"/"emic" distinction, we will have to change the meanings most often given to these terms. The "ethical" level is accepted as the only reality by writers brought up in the spirit of mechanistic materialism and sensationalist philosophy, and it is reduced to a briefly appearing, random image - what we would call an artifact. On the other hand, it is precisely at the "emic" level that both the work of perception and the most intellectual activity of the mind can meet and, mingling, can express their general subordination to the nature of reality itself. Structural arrangements are not the pure product of mental operations; the sense organs also function structurally; and outside of us there are similar structures in atoms, molecules, cells and organisms. Since these structures, both internal and external, cannot be comprehended on an "ethical" level, it follows that the nature of things is "emic" and not "ethical" and that the only "emic" approach brings us closer to it. When the mind processes those empirical data that were previously processed by the senses, it continues to structurally develop the material received by it in a structured form. And it can only do this if the mind, the body to which the mind relates, and the things perceived by the body and mind , are an integral part of the same reality.

If the stereochemical theory of odors developed by John E. Amoore (1970) is correct, then qualitative diversity, which - at the sensory level - can neither be analyzed nor even adequately described, can be reduced to differences between the geometric properties of scented molecules. Let me add one more example: Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, in their significant book Basic Terms of Color (1969), should not, in my opinion, equate the opposition of white and black and the opposition of consonant and vowel. Indeed, the cerebral maps of the visual and auditory systems seem, each in its own way, to be in broader homology with the consonant and vowel systems. Using the work of Wolfgang Köhler (1910–1915) and Karl Stumpf (1926), Roman Jakobson showed that the opposition of dark and light corresponds to the phonemes p and t, which, from a phonetic point of view, are opposed to each other as obtuse and acute, and in the vowel system the same opposition shifts to u and i. These two main phonemes are opposed by the third - a; and it, being more intensely chromatic - "less sensitive to the opposition of light and dark" - as Jakobson (1962, p. 324) says - corresponds to the color red, the name of which, according to Berlin and Kay, immediately follows in the language the names for black and white. Imitating physicists, Berlin and Kay distinguish three dimensions of color - hue, saturation, and value (brightness). Thus, it is emphasized that the original triangle, including white, black, red, when compared with triangles of consonants and vowels, is compared with two linguistic triangles - insofar as none of them requires a color shade, that is, the most "ethical" dimension of the three ( in the sense that the hue of color can only be determined by the criterion of facticity: the wavelength of light). On the contrary, speaking about a color, that it is saturated or not saturated, that it has the brightness of dark or light, one should consider this in relation to another color: the perception of a connection, a logical act, precedes the individual cognition of objects (5). But the place of red in the basic triangle of colors does not include the hue; red is simply placed on the edge of the axis, the poles of which are determined respectively by the presence or absence of chromatism, which characterizes the entire axis of white and black. Thus, it is always possible to determine the saturation of a color or its brightness using binary oppositions, asking the question - with respect to another color, whose color shade is no longer required to be determined - whether such a characteristic is present or absent. Here, too, the complexities of sensory perception suggest an underlying simple and logical structure.

Only close cooperation between the natural sciences and the humanities will make it possible to reject the old-fashioned philosophical dualism. Instead of opposing the ideal and the real, the abstract and the concrete, the "emic" and the "ethical", it will be recognized that the immediate data of perception are not reducible to any of these terms, do not lie here or there: in other words, they are already encoded by the sense organs. as good as the brain, in the form text, which, like any text, must be decoded in such a way that it can be translated into the language of other texts. Moreover, the physicochemical processes by which this original text was originally encoded are not fundamentally different from the analytical procedures that the mind uses in decoding. The ways and means of understanding are not peculiar exclusively to the highest intellectual activity, for understanding is taken for the development of intellectual processes, being realized already in the sense organs themselves.

Vulgar materialism and sensualistic empiricism put man in direct confrontation with nature, not imagining that the latter has structural properties, although undoubtedly richer, but not significantly different from those codes by which the nervous system deciphers them, or from the categories developed by the mind. in order to return to the original structure of reality. To admit that the mind is able to understand the world only because the mind itself is a part and product of this world does not mean to be a mentalist or an idealist. It is confirmed daily that, in seeking to understand the world, the mind operates in ways that appear to be no different from those that have unfolded in the world since the beginning of time.

Structuralists have often been accused of playing with abstractions that have nothing to do with reality. I have tried to show that, far from being the entertainment of sophisticated intellectuals, structural analysis, penetrating inside, reaches the mind only because its model already exists inside the body.

From the very beginning, visual perception rests on binary oppositions; and neuroscientists should probably agree that this is true of other areas of the brain. Following a path sometimes erroneously accused of being overly intellectual, structuralism discovers and brings to consciousness the deeper truths that are already latent in the body itself; it reconciles the physical and the spiritual, nature and man, reason and the world, and moves towards the only kind of materialism that is consistent with the actual development of scientific knowledge. Nothing could be further from Hegel and even from Descartes, whose dualism we seek to overcome while at the same time adhering to his adherence to rationalism.

It is a delusion that only those who practice structural analysis all the time can clearly grasp the direction and limits of their enterprise: in other words, combine perspectives that have been considered incompatible by adherents of the narrow scientific approach for the past few centuries - sensibility and intelligence, quality and quantity, specifically - the real and the geometric, or, as we say at the present time, "ethical" and "emic." Even ideological creations whose structure is highly abstract (anything that can be subsumed under the heading of "mythology") and which the mind seems to develop without undue subordination to the constraints of the techno-economic infrastructure, remain beyond description and analysis if thorough attention is not paid to environmental conditions and the different ways in which each culture responds to its natural environment. Only an almost slavish reverence for the most concrete reality can inspire us with the certainty that mind and body have not lost their ancient unity.

Structuralism is aware of other, less theoretical and more practical circumstances that justify it. The so-called primitive cultures studied by anthropologists teach the lesson that reality can be meaningful both at the level of scientific knowledge and at the level of sensory perception. These cultures urge us to reject the gap between the intelligible and the sensible proclaimed by obsolete empiricism and mechanism, and to reveal the secret harmony between humanity's eternal search for meaning and the world where we appeared and continue to live - a world built from shape, color, fabric density. , taste and smell. Structuralism teaches us to love and honor nature and the living creatures that inhabit it more, understanding that plants and animals, no matter how humble they may be, not only provided people with a livelihood, but from the very beginning were the source of their strongest aesthetic feelings, and in intellectually and morally - the source of the first and subsequent deep reflections.

LITERATURE

Amoore John E. Molecular basis of odor. Spriengfield. III. 1970.

Berlin Brent, Kay Paul. Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution. Berkeley, 1969.

Jacobson Roman. Selected writings. Vol. 1 Gravenhage, 1962.

Ko hler wolfgang. Akustische Untersuchungen // Zeitschrift fur Psychologie. Leipzig, 1910-1915.

Levi Strauss C. La pensee sauvage. Paris, 1962.

Luria A.R. Basic problems of neurolinguistios. The Hague, 1976.

Stump/Karl. Die Spraclante. Berlin, 1926.

Teit James A. The Shuswap // Publications of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. No. 2. Part 7. New York, 1909.

Notes:

First of all, we should mention the works of the largest Russian philologists E. M. Meletinsky (one of them, "The Paleo-Asiatic Myth of the Raven", 1978, is dedicated to K. Levi-Strauss), as well as V. V. Ivanov, V. N. Toporova and others.

However, this text is reproduced without any noticeable change in comparison with previous editions.

Dentalia - "sea tooth" molluscs. - Note. transl.

Original: "in the body". Here, of course, a play on words, since "in a body" means "in full force", and the author, as it were, brings the human body and nature external to the mind, implying both of these meanings at once. - Note. transl.

In the 60s. in France, structuralism pushed existentialism into the background. It became the leading philosophical trend in France, just as the philosophy of the Frankfurt School becomes the leading trend in Germany.

Structuralism is a complex of directions in humanitarian knowledge, in which the task is to reveal the structure of social formations. Structuralism was formed in a certain opposition to existentialism, offering a certain reorientation: instead of subjectivity, experience, freedom - objectivity, scientific character, rigid determination by structures.

The formation of methods of structuralism began in the 20s. in linguistics. Here the desire was determined to reveal the structure of the language, abstracting from its development, from geographical, historical, social circumstances. Then the methods of structural analysis began to be applied in psychology and literary criticism. In the 50-60s. methods of structuralism extend to other areas of culture.

In the 60s. structuralism acquires the status of a philosophical trend. It should be noted, however, that the works of the leading structuralists are mainly concrete scientific research, accompanied by philosophical reasoning. The leaders of structuralism were not professional philosophers. Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-1990) was an ethnologist Michel Foucault (1926-1984)- cultural historian Jacques Lacan (1901-1981)- a psychoanalyst Roland Barthes (1915-1980)- a literary critic.

Levi-Strauss, professor at the College de France, the creator of the concept of structural anthrology, spoke about the harmony of sensual and rational principles, lost by modern European civilization, but preserved in mythology. The main task of ethnology, according to Levi-Strauss, is the study of the transition from nature to culture. Here it is very important to consider the unconscious; consciousness exists at the intersection of many unconscious structures of the human spirit, each of which corresponds to a certain level of social reality. The works of Levi-Strauss are devoted to the study of the culture of primitive tribes, their way of life, marriage and family relations and research methodology. In Words and Things (1960), Foucault attempted to identify the unconscious foundations of knowledge common to biology, political economy, and linguistics in modern times. Lacan rethinks Freudian psychoanalysis using the methods of structural linguistics. Barthes explores sign systems (for example, in The Fashion System, 1967).

The isolation of the structural aspect in humanitarian knowledge is carried out, as a rule, on a certain sign system. A characteristic feature of structuralism is the desire to discover unconscious deep structures, hidden mechanisms of sign systems behind the conscious manipulation of images, symbols and signs. The structure in the understanding of structuralists is not just a combination of the elements of an object, available to direct contemplation. Structure is a set of hidden relationships revealed by the "power of abstraction" in the course of movement from phenomenon to essence. In this case, abstraction from the substrate specifics of the elements takes place, they take into account only "relational" properties, that is, properties that depend on their position in the system, on their relationship with other elements. The abstract structure singled out in this way can be investigated by the methods of symbolic logic and mathematics (for example, graph theory).

The level of conscious manipulation of signs and the level of hidden, unconsciously applied rules (mechanisms, patterns, structures) are singled out. “Following the physical sciences, the humanities must make sure that the reality of their object of study is not at all limited to the level at which it is perceived by the subject.” Reality itself consists of many levels that open up to the researcher depending on his approach, on the tasks he solves, just as different pictures of an object are found under a microscope, depending on the degree of magnification used.

Objecting to those who believe that scientific methods are contraindicated for humanitarian knowledge, Levi-Strauss defends the legitimacy of an objective scientific study of "human reality". At the same time, he believes that in scientific knowledge there are different levels associated with empirical-rational and intuitive cognitive procedures.

Levi-Strauss calls his philosophical position "super-rationalism". True reality, he believes, is never given to the subject in direct experience and is comprehensible only by modeling unconscious processes. Consciousness exists at the intersection of many unconscious structures of the human spirit, each of which corresponds to a certain level of social reality.

The sciences of culture face specific difficulties: their object is human activity with its free choices, values, and goals that do not seem to fit into the framework of objective laws. But, from the point of view of the structuralists, human freedom is an illusion; in reality, our behavior is rigidly determined by the deep structures of language, culture, and the subconscious. The discovery of these structures makes it possible to abstract from subjectivity. In science, art, mythology, religion, structuralists seek to discover these structures, deep patterns.

Methodological principles of Levi-Strauss. The main methodological principles of structuralism are as follows. The first principle of Levi-Strauss is expressed in the formula: "The methodological primacy of relations over the elements of the system." In this regard, he wrote: "The error of traditional sociology, as well as traditional linguistics, is that it considered elements, and not the relations between elements."

The second principle: "The methodological primacy of synchrony over diachrony" (this idea comes from F. de Saussure). To reveal the structure of an object, it is necessary to abstract from its development and consider its various parts as existing at one moment (synchronously). And only after the device of the object is revealed, it is possible to study its changes at different points in time (diachronically).

The third methodological principle: "Structure is a set of relations that are invariant under certain transformations."

As a result of concrete scientific research, structuralists came to the conclusion that in various areas of human activity there is some hidden foundation that directs and structures seemingly chaotic human phenomena.

What is this foundation? In answering this question, Levi-Strauss starts from the ideas of Kant. In Kant, the forms of sensibility and reason are superimposed on sensory data coming from outside. In Levi-Strauss, the role of a priori forms is played by the structures of the unconscious. Unlike the subconscious, which is a special form of memory, “the unconscious is always empty, or, more precisely, it is as alien to images as the stomach is alien to the food passing through it. Being an organ of a specific function, it is limited to imposing structural patterns ... on ... elements coming from other places - impulses, emotions, ideas, memories. This function "for all people is carried out according to the same laws and is actually reduced to the totality of these laws."

On a conscious level, a person operates with signs, building messages, texts from them; he does this by obeying certain rules which, in the normal use of sign systems, are applied automatically, unconsciously. So, a person who speaks a language well follows grammatical norms in his speech, without thinking about them and even, perhaps, not knowing about their existence. Moreover, the people of primitive tribes, immersed in various sign systems realized in myths, rituals, totems, etc., did not know about the existence of unconscious mechanisms.

Unconscious patterns, structures of the psyche, according to Levi-Strauss, are universal. The study of sign systems makes it possible to identify the laws of the functioning of the human psyche.

Thus, there are structures independent of the human will (social, mythical and linguistic), and if you study them scientifically, then the person eventually “dissolves” into them. Man is not the master of his own life; it is driven by unconscious structuring forces.

In this regard, Foucault writes: “It turns out that it is the set of structures that, in essence, potentially creates a person; he, of course, can think about them, describe them, but he is no longer a subject, not a sovereign consciousness. The reduction of man to his surrounding structures, it seems to me, characterizes modern thought. History is not created by man, it develops without his participation.

The application of the methodology of structuralism in specific scientific research has made it possible to obtain a number of new results in the understanding of culture.

Levi-Strauss, developing the so-called ethnological structuralism (related to structuralism in linguistics), proposed a new typology of marriage and kinship relations (“Elementary Structures of Kinship”, 1949), an original solution to the problem of totemism (“Totemism Today”, 1962), a new theory of primitive thinking , radically different from the concept of Levy-Bruhl ("Savage Thinking", 1962), structural-semiotic interpretation of myths (four-volume series "Mythological", 1964-1971), structural-semiotic interpretation of ritual masks ("The Way of Masks", 1975), etc. .

When analyzing the social structure, cultural and spiritual life of primitive tribes, Levi-Strauss proceeds from the fact that marriage procedures, kinship terminology, totemism, rituals, myths, etc. are all a special kind of languages. Normally, both in primitive and modern society, phenomena such as naming, table manners, etc., are "carefully observed by everyone, although their origin and real functions do not become the object of reflective research." We need to find the basis of these phenomena.

Lacan put forward the thesis about the similarity (or analogy) between the structures of language and the mechanism of the unconscious. All human desires, all unconscious phenomena fit into linguistic structures. This means that through the structures of language the unconscious can be made an object of scientific knowledge, it can be structured and rationalized.

Barthes set himself the task of finding a universal structure, "sociology" in every product of modern culture: in the structure of the city, fashion, mass media, etc. He studied the history of semiotic practices of various social groups, the hierarchy of languages, the system of genres in art and their foundations. Barth comes to the conclusion that language is not just a tool for the content of thought, but actively produces this content. Bart pays special attention to the study of literature, especially modernist. At the same time, he proves that literature cannot be outside the structures of power, lead a life independent of politics.

Foucault occupied a prominent place in structuralism. He became famous for his works Words and Things: The Archeology of the Humanities (1966), the three-volume History of Sexuality (The Will to Know, 1976; The Enjoyment of Pleasures, Self Care, 1984).

Analyzing the role of language in culture, Foucault draws attention to the fact that the inclusion of a person in social life occurs not only through learning to speak: "You can't say anything and anytime." Foucault sets the task of correlating the linguistic layer of culture with the social layer. "Linguistic" and "social" are associated with "discursive" and "non-discursive" types of practice. Discursive practice draws from non-discursive material to be structured and formalized. But in order to reveal the level of this implicit knowledge, it is necessary to carry out a huge "deconstructive-constructive" work, a critical analysis of all sciences, theories, concepts.

Foucault explores the development of modern science, shows the changes in its “unconscious foundation”, “epistems” (“epistemic structures” act at the unconscious level and define different areas of culture and knowledge) in different periods. This "foundation" is a certain configuration of sign systems, which determines the possibility of posing scientific problems and solving them in a given period. Foucault distinguishes three epistemes - the Renaissance, classical rationalism and modernity. As we move from one episteme to another, the role of language in culture changes to the extent that language becomes an independent force in the modern episteme. But why sign configurations are rearranged, there is a transition from one episteme to another - remains incomprehensible.

Foucault pays much attention to the problem of power. Everything that is connected with the comprehension of truth, in fact, turns out to be adapted for the production of power. But power itself, according to Foucault, is interested in not being seen, it needs a masking mechanism. Power can work fruitfully only if its foundations are concealed; “The nature of this concealment underlies the very operations authorities".

The disclosure of the nature of power shows that power has a negative (manifested in suppression, coercion) and positive character. "Power is strong only because it produces action at the level of desire and knowledge." Different types of power give rise to reality itself, and the objects of their knowledge, and the "rituals" of their comprehension. Power relations permeate all social structures.

Modern power, Foucault believes, has three main functions: "oversight", discipline and rationing. These functions involve certain strategies: managing individuals (social physics), supervising them (social optics), procedures for isolating and regrouping them (social physiology).

In the traditions of structuralism, a theoretical basis was formed feminist movement. The origins of this movement are rooted in the late XIX - early XX century. In 1929, the American writer Virginia Woolf stated: "It is obvious that the values ​​that guide women often differ from those developed by the opposite sex." However, masculine values ​​prevail in society. K. Allen, A. Boxster, S. Griffin (prominent ideologists of feminism) argue that culture is still based on a “patriarchal” attitude, a view of the world and reality from the position of a man. It is this attitude that leads to the dominance of abstract-cognitive activity, the militarization of society, the practice of sexism, i.e., oppression based on gender. What lies behind these processes?

Feminist ideologists are looking for structures and mechanisms that form a "patriarchal" attitude. They highlight three points.

♦ A division of labor in which women have to reproduce people (labor) and life-sustaining conditions. There is a “removal” of women into the sphere of the household. Moreover, domestic work is not assessed as socially significant; in society it is not customary to pay for this work, although, working at home, a woman creates some unaccounted products.

♦ Understanding a woman as an object (from the side of male consciousness). To illustrate this, F. Parturier cites a selection of quotes from the works of J. Bataille, de Sade, A. Miller: “I use a woman in accordance with my need as an empty round box”, “The state of her mind and heart can be completely ignored” , “Do you feel sorry for the chicken you eat - no, you don’t even think about it, the same with a woman”, “To enjoy yourself, there is no need to give pleasure to them”, etc. The relationship between a man and woman - the relationship of master and slave.

♦ It is noted that the process of socialization, especially in the family, takes place as an orientation towards various gender roles, with special attention being paid to the formation of the “male self”.

As a result of these processes, both sexes suffer. Feminists propose a program that should radically change the situation. It is necessary to establish equal economic conditions for women and men, it is necessary to change the nature of socialization in the family, to form a "partner" family. The process of socialization should take place in such a way that there is no sharp distinction between men and women.

The radical wing of the feminist movement goes further. Barbara Ehrenreich writes: “Equality with men is a wonderful goal, and I will fight for the right of any woman to do the same stupid and boring things for which men are well paid and respected. But assimilation alone is not enough, as was written on one of the feminist T-shirts: "If you think that equality is the goal, then your standards are too low." It is proposed to take the “point of view” of the oppressed group, analyze and “force out” the hegemony of the “male” consciousness. Feminists advocate for the "point of view" of women to be heard in literature, art, the media, etc. etc. This will lead to the fact that it will become easier for both men and women, the world will become kinder, more humane.

The concept of feminism provokes various reactions - from support to condemnation. Its supporters are sometimes reproached for "retreating from the generally accepted norms of morality", for the fact that they seek to destroy the "male romantic dream", turn a woman into a car, etc. But if we admit that there are differences in worldview and worldview between a man and woman, then it is impossible to prevent the implementation of the installation on the development of a “matriarchal” point of view and the creation of a partner family.

Assessing structuralism in general, it should be noted that the identification of hidden (“abstract”) structures is a really important point in scientific research. But at the same time, the importance of this moment should not be exaggerated.

In modern cultural studies, a special place is occupied by structuralism. This is determined by the need to develop new research methods based solely on scientific concepts. Mathematics, cybernetics, and semiotics had a significant influence on the formation of the discipline. Consider .

Key principles

Structuralism is methodological direction in the study of social and cultural phenomena. It is based on the following principles:

1. The process is considered as a holistic, multi-level education.
2. The study of the phenomenon is carried out taking into account the variability - within a particular culture or a larger space in which it changes.

The final result is the modeling of the "structure", the establishment of the hidden logic of the formation of cultural integrity.

Peculiarities

Structuralism is a method used in the study of the forms in which the cultural activity of people is expressed. They are universal universals, accepted schemes of intellectual work. These forms are denoted by the concept of structure. It, in turn, is interpreted as a complex of relations that maintain their stability over a long historical period or in different parts of the world. These fundamental structures function as unconscious mechanisms that regulate all spiritual and creative activity of a person.

Formation of discipline

Researchers identify several stages that passed in its development structuralism. This:

1. 20-50s 20th century. At this stage, a lot of research was carried out, attempts were made to prove that the whole phenomenon is stable and exists regardless of chance.
2. 50-60s 20th century Key concepts at this stage are explored and comprehended by the French liberal arts school. Techniques for objective cognition of unconscious models of relations in various spheres of social and cultural reality are beginning to be consistently developed. It was at this stage that the key task of the discipline was formulated. It consisted in the study of culture as an all-encompassing semiotic structure functioning to ensure communication between people. The study was focused on abstracting from the specifics of ethnic and historical forms, to reveal the common, defining the essence of the culture of all peoples at all times.
3. At the third stage, the worldview and methodological problems faced by researchers in the past stages were overcome. The consistent solution of the tasks set leads to the almost complete displacement of man from the sphere of study by impersonal systems.

The main representatives of structuralism- J. Lacan, R. Barthes, M. Foucault, J. Deleuze, J. Bodillard, etc.

Problems and tasks

"The man dies, the structure remains" - an idea that has generated a lot of controversy. In 1968, a wave of unrest swept through France. Students, young intellectuals, proclaimed the slogan: "It's not structures that take to the streets, but living people!" The answer to it was given. In an effort to realize the goals not achieved by the classical concept, he highlights the task of studying the "man of desire." So Foucault showed that structuralism in philosophy flexible method, able to adapt to conditions. At the same time, several new problems were put forward. They were in:

1. Understanding everything non-structural within the framework of the structure.
2. Identification of contradictions that arise when trying to study a person only through language systems.

In addition, the following tasks were formulated:

1. Overcome the linguistic reductionism and non-historicism of classical structuralism.
2. Build new models of meaning formation.
3. Explain the practice of open reading of cultural texts, overcoming analytical and hermeneutical models of interpretation.

Claude Levi-Strauss

He was a French ethnographer, culturologist, social scientist. This man is considered the founder of structuralism. The scientist recognized the essential similarity of human values ​​in different civilizations. In his works, he emphasized that identity should be determined by the presence in a particular culture of a specific method of their implementation. Levi-Strauss said that no civilization can claim the leading role, that which it expresses to the maximum extent, embodies the world civilization.

Influence on the development of thought

In the process of ethnographic expeditions, Levi-Strauss collects a huge amount of material and tries to interpret it in a new way. The scientist relies on the concepts of Radcliffe-Brown and Malinovsky's functionalism. They base their thoughts on the fact that nothing happens by chance in culture. Everything that seems to be so should and can subsequently be understood as an expression of its deep laws and functions. It was this idea that became the foundation on which structuralism began to build.

Psychology and many other disciplines also began to change. One of the leading thinkers was F. de Saussure. Meetings with him seriously influenced Lévi-Strauss. All these prerequisites provided a new perspective on the question of so-called "primitive" cultures. Levi-Strauss set the most important task. He sought to prove that culture as a subjective reality, which was extolled but not interpreted by existentialists, can and must be studied objectively, scientifically.

false promises

If we talk about culturological ideas, then Levi-Strauss cannot be called an evolutionist. Various misconceptions are criticized in his works. He considers the so-called "false evolutionism" to be one of them. Within the framework of this method, different, simultaneously existing states of societies are considered as different stages of a single development process striving for a common goal. As a typical example of such a message, the scientist considers a direct comparison of the non-literate tribes of the natives of the 20th century. and archaic forms of European civilizations, although "primitive communities" go a long way, and therefore cannot be regarded either as a primitive or as a "childish" state of mankind. The fundamental difference between them and technologically advanced civilizations is not that they have no development, but that their evolution is oriented towards preserving the original methods of establishing a relationship with nature.

conclusions

As Levi-Strauss notes, in the framework of the strategy of intercultural interactions, following false messages leads to the imposition, often violently, of the "Western model" of life. As a result, the centuries-old traditions existing among the "primitive" peoples are being destroyed. Progress cannot be likened to a one-way upswing. It goes in different directions, which are incommensurable only with technical achievements. An example of this is the East. In the field of research on the human body, he is ahead of the West by several millennia.

If we consider culture as a colossal semiotic system formed in order to ensure the effectiveness of human communication, the entire existing world appears as a huge number of texts. They can be a variety of sequences of actions, rules, relationships, forms, customs, and so on. Structuralism in philosophy is a way to penetrate into the realm of objective regularities located at a level that is not realized by a person who creates culture and exists in it and at the expense of it.

The concept of the unconscious

It occupies a special place in teaching. Levi-Strauss considers the unconscious as a hidden mechanism of sign systems. He explains it as follows. On a conscious level, the individual uses signs. He builds phrases and texts from them. However, a person does this according to special rules. They are worked out spontaneously and collectively; Many people don't even know about them. These rules are elements

Similarly, the components form all areas of the spiritual life of the community. Structuralism in sociology is thus based on the concept of the collective unconscious. Jung names archetypes as primary foundations. Structuralism in psychology development of society considers sign systems. All cultural realms - mythology, religion, language, literature, customs, art, traditions, and so on - can be considered as such models.

"wild" thinking

Analyzing it, Lévi-Strauss answers the question posed by Lévy-Bruhl. Exploring totemic classifications, the most rationalized cataloging of natural phenomena by the thinking of a native, the scientist shows that there is no less logic in him than in the minds of a modern European.

The key task in the study is to find a mechanism for the formation of meaning. Levi-Strauss suggests that it is created through binary oppositions: animal-vegetable, boiled-raw, woman-man, culture-nature, and so on. As a result of mutual substitution, permutations, exclusions, etc., they form the sphere of present meaning. This is the "rules by which rules are applied" level. A person usually does not realize them, despite the fact that he puts them into practice. They are not on the surface, but form the basis of the mental cultural "background".

binary oppositions

They were first introduced by Roman Jacobson. This scientist had a huge impact on the development of the humanities with his innovative thoughts and active organizational work.

He owns fundamental works on general language theory, morphology, phonology, Slavic studies, semiotics, grammar, Russian literature and other areas. As part of his research, Roman Yakobson deduced 12 binary features that form phonological oppositions. According to the scientist, they act as linguistic universals on which any language is based. That's how it was born. The scientist's method was actively used in the analysis of myths.

Superrationalism

Levi-Strauss sought to find a common foundation for all cultures of all times. In the course of research, he formulates the idea of ​​super-rationalism. The scientist sees its implementation in the harmony of rational and sensual principles, which is lost by modern European civilization. But it can be found at the level of mythological primitive thinking.

To explain this condition, the scientist introduces the term "bricolage". This concept describes a situation in which, when coding a logical-conceptual meaning within the framework of primitive thinking, sensory images are used that are not specially adapted for this. This happens in the same way as a home craftsman, when creating his crafts, uses improvised materials that he accidentally has. The coding of abstract concepts occurs with the help of different sets of sensory qualities, forming systems of interchangeable codes.

Yuri Lotman expressed similar thoughts in his works. He was one of the creators of the study of culture and literature in the Soviet era. Yuri Lotman is the founder of the Tartu-Moscow school. The scientist considers questions of art and culture as "secondary systems". Language is the primary model. Lotman sees the function of art and culture in the fight against entropy and the storage of information, communication between people. At the same time, art acts as a part of culture together with science.

Human

Levi-Strauss considers the individual as a complex of internal and external. The latter is formed from the symbols that a person uses. The internal is the unconscious system of the mind. It remains unchanged, unlike the external one. As a result, their structural connection is broken. Proceeding from this, the dramas of modern cultural life are the problems of man himself. The modern individual is in need of "repair". In order to conduct it, it is necessary to return to the primitive experience, to restore the unity and integrity of the "savage". Anthropology plays an important role in solving this problem.

A set of holistic approaches

It is used in many concepts. Holism can be ontological. In this case, the supremacy of integrity over individual components is affirmed. Holistic approaches can be methodological in nature. In this case, individual phenomena are explained in relation to wholes. In a general sense, holism is an attitude to take into account all aspects of the phenomenon under study. It presupposes a critical attitude towards any one-sided method. Actually, this was proclaimed by the followers of structuralism.

Conclusion

The results that were obtained by Levi-Strauss received wide recognition in the world. At the same time, they also generated a lot of discussions. The main thing in the research is that these results showed with scientific accuracy that culture is a superstructure on top of nature. It has a multi-level, "multi-story" character. Culture is a complex mechanism of many semiotic systems used in the regulation of human relationships, which can be predicted and calculated with mathematical precision. These verbal models are the base. Based on them, people's communication is regulated as a continuous chain of messages that make up cultural texts.