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A Primitive System of Values

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

D. Demetracopoulou Lee
D. Demetracopoulou Lee*
Affiliation:
Vassar College
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Extract

The Trobriand Islanders about whom this study-is concerned, have been studied intensively by Professor Bronislaw Malinowski, who has published his results in several monographs. This essay is based entirely on his writings. It does not add any material to what Professor Malinowski has presented. It tries, rather, to formulate what is not explicitly stated;— the logical and ethical implications of the customary behavior of the Trobrianders. If at times I venture to disagree with Professor Malinowski's own deductions, it is only because, in presenting the material with such a wealth of pertinent detail and emotional association, he has made it possible for his readers to draw conclusions as valid as his own.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , July 1940 , pp. 355 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1940

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References

1 I have used principally the following books: Argonauts of the Western Pacific; The Sexual Life of the Savages; Coral Gardens and their Magic;—this last chiefly for linguistic material. As Malinowski did most of his field work in Kiriwana, my study deals mostly with this district. Some of the other monographs published by Malinowski on the Trobriand Islands are: Sex and Repression in Savage Society; Myth in Primitive Psychology; The Father in Primitive Psychology; Crime and Custom in Savage Society; The Foundations of Faith and Morals.

2 In this section I run counter to the stated opinion of Malinowski, according to whom linguistic form contains no valid clue to cultural concept.

3 I give below the grounds on which I base these statements. I make them on the basis of Malinowski's word-for-word translations, not his free translations.

4 In opposing this to the meaning of the English because, 1 am referring to the concept of cause as held by the man in the street, not to the analyses and theories of our philosphers.

5 All but the very last phrase is Malinowski's free translation of the passage. The last phrase I took from his literal translation, to avoid the causal terminology which he employs in his free translation. The future, as also the present, is Malinowski's rendition of an apparently tenseless form.

6 Literally is strong.

7 The might does not indicate probability, but is merely an arbitrary and convenient way of rendering an obscure non-temporal particle.

8 I am indebted to Dr. Grace de Laguna for drawing my attention to this point.

9 The fact that this type of language is found over a far-flung area does not, I believe, invalidate my thesis. Conventions of thought are also to be found spread over a wide region.

10 Since I express myself in the English language, I am forced, here and hereafter, to make use of expressions which might imply causal relationship.

10a Here I discuss only the ethical aspect of the Good. Its social and emotional aspects will be the subject of another study.

11 I do not mean, here, to imply that an act is not, in fact, unconsciously tested against the total cultural system. What constitutes the Good is determined by the culture, and, to this extent, a thing is good only in relation to that cultural system; a man is good only if he is a good Trobriander.

12 The word like has been inserted only to make the phrase comprehensible.

13 At the risk of repeating myself unduly, I want to reiterate here that good acts are only those which have some reference to giving or receiving. It follows that all social or socially approved acts need not be good; that public is not identified with social.

14 See note 11.

15 By too, I mean inappropriate; that which is not fitting to the man's commoner status.

16 Since a man receives a large gift of yams from his wife's brother, it follows that the more wives he has, the more yams he receives and the more valuables he gives during the year.