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Primitive Reactions and the Reactions of Primitives: The 1983 Marett Lecture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

D. Z. Phillips
D. Z. Phillips
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, University College of Swansea
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Extract

In his 1950 Marett Lecture, Professor Evans-Pritchard gave an account of important methodological developments which had taken place in social anthropology. I should like to use the occasion to concentrate on some of the deep contemporary divisions in another subject which interested R. R. Marett, namely, the philosophy of religion. I shall do so, however, by reference to some of the methodological issues which concerned Evans-Pritchard.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 165 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

page 165 note 1 ‘Social Anthropology: Past and Present’, in Essays in Social Anthropology (Faber and Faber, 1962).

page 165 note 2 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., Theories of Primitive Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), p. 100.Google Scholar

page 165 note 3 Ibid. p. 122.

page 165 note 4 Tylor, E. B., Primitive Culture (London, 1920), p. 53.Google Scholar

page 166 note 1 Frazer, James, The Golden Bough, abridged ed. (Macmillan, 1924), p. 264.Google Scholar

page 166 note 2 Marett, R. R., The Threshold of Religion, 2nd ed. (Macmillan, 1914), p. xxxi.Google Scholar

page 166 note 3 Theories of Primitive Religion, p. 101.

page 167 note 1 op. cit.

page 167 note 2 See, for example, Mitchell, Basil, The Justification of Religious Belief (Macmillan, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 167 note 3 For these opposite tendencies see Swinburne, Richard, The Coherence of Theism (O.U.P., 1977)Google Scholar and Mackie, J. L., The Miracle of Theism (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1982).Google Scholar

page 168 note 1 Such criticisms have been frequent themes in much of my own work. See The Concept of Prayer (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965); paperback ed. (Blackwell, Basil, 1981)Google Scholar and Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970).

page 168 note 2 For my discussion of these criticisms: see Religion Without Explanation (Basil Blackwell, 1976), chapter 4: ‘Private Stress and Public Ritual’.

page 169 note 1 For a collection of papers which reflects the transition in philosophy from asking whether religious beliefs are true or false to asking whether they are even meaningful, see the once influential collection, New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. Flew, A. G. N. and Maclntyre, A. (S.C.M. Press, 1955).Google Scholar

page 169 note 2 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ‘Remarks on Frazer's The Golden Bough’, trans. Miles, A. C. and Rhees, Rush, The Human World, no. 3 (05 1971), p. 37.Google Scholar

page 169 note 3 Ibid. p. 31.

page 169 note 4 Cook, John W., ‘Magic, Witchcraft and Science’, Philosophical Investigations, VI, no. 1 (1983).Google Scholar

page 169 note 5 Rush Rhees had anticipated the kind of reaction we find in Cook: ‘“So Wittgenstein was coming forward in defence of the ancient rituals!” That remark could have sense only if Wittgenstein had recognised no other “co-ordinates”, no other standards than that of knowledge, of what may be established in science, and error; (and probably it would not have sense even then).’ Rhees, Rush, ‘Wittgenstein on Language and Ritual’ in Wittgenstein and His Times, ed. McGuinness, Brian (Basil Blackwell, 1982), pp. 80–1.Google Scholar

page 170 note 1 Ibid. p. 82.

page 170 note 2 MS 109, 210 f.

page 170 note 3 Beattie, John, Other Cultures (Cohen and West, 1964), p. 204.Google Scholar Cook quotes this passage on op. cit. p. 6.

page 170 note 4 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ‘Remarks on Frazer's’ The Golden Bough, p. 19.Google Scholar

page 171 note 1 Compare the following: ‘The gestures made in these rituals had been learned in the daily life and language of those who made them – or many, and probably most of them were. The gestures used only in the ceremony had their role as gestures – they were seen as gestures – through some affinity with the gestures made in daily life and practical affairs (in building, planting, hunting, fighting, and so on). And the same goes for words and sentences, which are as important in many ritual or magical practices as gestures are, in incantations, spells, curses, in prayers, vows, and so on. There may be words used only in ritual magic, but these are taken as words with the power that words have in speech – conversation, instructions, orders, quarrels, etc., outside ritual – a power which they bring with them into ritual.’ Rhees, , op. cit., p. 72.Google Scholar

page 171 note 2 For further discussion of this issue see my paper, ‘Wittgenstein's Full Stop’ in Perspectives on the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, ed. Block, I. (Basil Blackwell, 1981).Google Scholar

page 171 note 3 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., Theories of Primitive Religion, p. 35.Google Scholar

page 171 note 4 Ibid. p. 17.

page 172 note 1 Op. Cit. p. 35.

page 173 note 1 Theories of Primitive Religion, p. 46.

page 173 note 2 Ibid.

page 173 note 3 Ibid. p. 45.

page 174 note 1 Op. cit. p. x.

page 174 note 2 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty, (475).Google Scholar

page 174 note 3 Malcolm, Norman, ‘The Relation of Language to Instinctive Behaviour’, Philosophical Investigations, V, no. 1 (Jan. 1982), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

page 174 note 4 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ‘Cause and effect: intuitive awareness’, Philosophia, v 6, nos. 3–4, pp. 391–408, Sept., Dec., 1976.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Selected and edited by Rush Rhees, English translation by Winch, Peter, p. 416.Google Scholar

page 174 note 5 Weil, Simone, Lectures on Philosophy, trans. Price, H. S. (C.U.P., 1978), p. 51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 175 note 1 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, The Blue and Brown Books (Basil Blackwell, 1978), p. 51.Google Scholar

page 175 note 2 Op. cit, p. 31.

page 175 note 3 Ibid.Winch, Peter, introduction, p. 12.Google Scholar

page 175 note 4 Wittgenstein's, LudwigCulture and Value, trans. Winch, Peter (Basil Blackwell, 1980), p. 31.Google Scholar

page 176 note 1 Rhees, Rush, ‘Wittgenstein on language and ritual’, p. 88.Google Scholar

page 176 note 2 Mounce, H. O., ‘Understanding a primitive society’, Philosophy, XLVIII, Oct. 1973, pp. 347–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 176 note 3 Ibid. p. 353.

page 176 note 4 At the University of Carleton, Ottawa.

page 177 note 1 For a development of the important distinction between ‘misunderstanding’ and ‘failing to understand’, see Rush Rhees, ‘Wittgenstein on Language and Ritual’.

page 177 note 2 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ‘Remarks on Frazer's’ The Golden Bough, p. 31.Google Scholar

page 177 note 3 Rhees, Rush, ‘Wittgenstein on Language and Ritual ’, p. 90.Google Scholar The extent of my indebtedness to this outstanding may should be obvious. This is not to say, of course, that Rhees would necessarily approve of the use I have made of it in this lecture.

page 178 note 1 Winch, Peter, ‘Meaning and religous language’, in Reason and Religion, ed. Brown, Stuart (Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 197.Google Scholar

page 179 note 1 Theories of Primitive Religion, p. 15.

page 179 note 2 Ibid. p. 17.

page 179 note 3 Malcolm, Norman, ‘The Groundlessness of Belief, in Thought and Knowledge (Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 204.Google Scholar

page 180 note 1 The Marett lecture was delivered at Exeter College, Oxford on 17 May 1983.