Boyer Rethinking Religion

Review
Reviewed Work(s): Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture by E. Thomas

Lawson and Robert N. McCauley
Review by: Pascal Boyer
Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 93, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp. 984-985
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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984 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [93, 1991]
ture employed by anthropologists,

perspectives that and high-
are brought to bear on ma-
lights the breadth of theoryterial-culture
that could studiesbe
in museums.
use- The au-
ful to curators. The next four
thors raisechapters aug-about the role
important questions
ment Pearce's discussion from the perspective
and function of museums in anthropology and
of history (Schlereth), archeology
in the larger(Crowther),
society and suggest new direc-
applied arts (Wolfenden), tionsand linguistics
that are informed by contemporary so-
(Pearce). In a provocative essay, Hooper-
cial theory.
Greenhill examines the social construction of
museums, drawing on Foucault's notion of the
"disciplinary society." She Rethinking
links the Religion: Connecting Cogni-
technol-
tion and Culture. E. Thomas that
ogies of the disciplinary society-those Lawson and Rob-
ert N.space,
survey, separate, and classify McCauley. New
time,York: Cambridge
and Uni-
things-with the emergence versityof
Press,museums
1990. 204 pp. $42.50as
(cloth).
"an instrument for the democratic education
of the masses." She argues that this new role PASCAL BOYER
creates a new division between the producers University of Cambridge
and consumers of knowledge, and that the
museum becomes one of the "apparatuses that Anthropological theories of religion are gen-
create docile bodies in a disciplinary society" erally based on dubious psychological prem-
(p. 71). ises. The uncritical adoption of commonsense
Hooper-Greenhill's chapter provides an ex- psychological notions is compounded by a
cellent bridge to the next chapters, which fo- general ignorance of modern cognitive sci-
cus on collections and on the relationship be- ence. The point of this important book is to go
tween the producers and consumers of knowl- against this tendency and account for the cog-
edge. Collections are the core of Western mu- nitive processes underlying religious symbol-
seums; the museum's function is to organize, ism and ritual. The enterprise is, by necessity,
categorize, document, preserve, and present largely speculative. The authors, however, put
its collection. Noting the seriously inadequate forward clear hypotheses that should provide
documentation of museum collections, Kaep- the basis for a renewed cognitive approach to
pler, Furst, and Jenkins each discuss the his- religion.
torical and cultural knowledge that can be One can distinguish three levels in the ar-
gained by careful study of the physical and gument of Rethinking Religion. First, in a very
historical dimensions of artifacts. For Kaep- general perspective, the authors demonstrate
pler, the reward of accurate documentation of the general need for a cognitive approach to
ethnohistoric collections is placing "peoples of religion that would take into account the de-
the world in historical settings" rather than velopments of cognitive science, and would in-
the more typical practice of using "artifacts of tegrate the material of classical anthropologi-
no specific time period to convey romantic no- cal monographs. Second, there is a defense of
tions of timeless cultural others" (p. 87). a particular form of cognitive description in
Traditional curatorship, in which the phys- the domain of religion, namely, a "compe-
ical form of the artifact is the point of depar- tence approach." This implies a set of precise
ture for cultural and historical interpretations, hypotheses about what is to count as cultural
is critiqued in chapters by Gathercole, Kava- knowledge, how it can be approached, and
naugh, and Jenkinson. They argue that the what sorts of regularities are to be explained.
meaning of objects is context dependent, and In direct analogy with linguistic competence,
that the social and historical contexts of mu- Lawson and McCauley argue that idealized
seum collections should be central to the anal-
participants in religious systems must repre-
ysis and display of artifacts. Several authors sent some knowledge that allows them to have
question the disjuncture between scholarly definite intuitions about the "well-formed-
knowledge and the presentation of artifacts to ness" of religious phenomena in their culture.
the public, observing that interpretations tend Third, this general approach is implemented
to be artifact-centered rather than people-cen- in a specific theory of ritual action, which rep-
tered and, thus, divorced from human expe- resents the core of the argument. The theory
rience.
makes definite empirical claims, which, if con-
Some readers may feel that the theory dis- sidered relevant to the study of ritual action,
cussed in this book is not "cutting edge." would demonstrate the relevance of both the
However, the authors' awareness of the inter- general cognitive orientation and the specific
relationship between theory and practice in "competencist" framework chosen. This is
museum work is cutting edge; the book is stim- why the theory of ritual action, or rather of the
ulating in terms of the breadth of theory and kind of knowledge implied by ritual action, is
GENERAL/I THEORETICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 985
Semiotics,
the most important part of the book. It is Self,
con-and Society. Benjamin Lee
ducted mainly in a deductive manner, al- eds. Approaches to Semiotics,
and Greg Urban,
though ethnographic illustrations
84. Neware pro-
York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1989. 327
pp. and
vided by Indian (Vedic), African, DM 118 (cloth).
(West-
ern) Christian examples.
BENJAMIN
The authors start with a strict KILBORNE
analytical
distinction, between the semantics of religious
California Institute of the Arts
ritual systems (the various conceptual as-
sumptions concerning extra-natural This entities)
volume includes a collection of essays
on the one hand, and the syntax of dedicated to Milton Singer, and a substantial
ritual action
on the other. Actual ritual actions are the re- essay of his own. The basic argument common
alization of abstract descriptions generated by to the papers is that semiotics as the study of
a set of basic recursive rules applied over a set the sociological-structural dimension of mean-
of variables (agent, act, object). It must being can contribute to our understanding of the
stressed that such action descriptions are notrelation between self and society. Behind the
abstracted by inductive generalizations fromargument lie important questions concerning
actual actions, anymore than syntactic struc-the ways in which feelings of self, sense of self,
tures can be uncovered by generalizing over ideas of self, and representations of self are
actual utterances. The action descriptions communicated about through language in dif-
represent the competence that a participant ferent cultures.
must have in order to have intuitions of well- Following C. S. Peirce, Singer himself and
formedness concerning the formal validity ofother contributors stress the cultural functions
specific rituals. Combined with semantic prin-of personal pronouns together with their im-
ciples, from what the authors call the "concep- plications for cultural ideas about self and so-
tual religious scheme," the action-descrip- ciety. Peirce's categories of"Firstness," "Sec-
tions are used to put forward "universal prin-ondness," and "Thirdness" constitute the
ciples of religious ritual" (ch. 5, passim). Thesestructural basis for a semiotic analysis of the
are hypotheses about various formal features functions of personal pronouns. Firstness des-
of religious ritual, notably with regard to theignates things that refer to nothing but them-
relative centrality of specific ritual actions in a selves; Secondness, to things that exist in
given religious system. dyadic relationships; and Thirdness, to the
This is a very rich and dense volume. The property of triadic relationships. These cate-
theoretical arguments are many; each of themgories constitute the bedrock of what the con-
has important consequences in the way an- tributors define as "linguistically represented
thropology should think about, or even try tosocial reality." For example, Urban and Lee
describe, religious phenomena. Some aspectsbelieve that basic cultural shifts are repre-
sented in "pronominal play," and that shifts
of the theory call for further clarification or
in the frequency of one pronoun as opposed to
empirical illustration, notably those that in-
form the intuitions of "well-formedness" that another have semiotic and cultural interpre-
tations. Strauss writes of pronoun use in
the competence approach is based upon.
Northern Cheyenne language and its impli-
There is no doubt, however, that Rethinking Re-
cations for Cheyenne culture, and Daniel
ligion is a very important book that marks a writes on "The Semeiosis of Suicide in Sri
turning point in the way anthropologists think
Lanka," arguing that the emotions that cause
about religious ideas and practices. It cer-
suicide behaviors are explicable in terms of
tainly provides the first anthropological the-
Peircean semiotics. And Singer notes that
ory, in the domain of religion, that takes into Beatles songs written between 1961-70 con-
account the findings and hypotheses of cogni- tain 1,394 "you's" and only 1,268 "me's" (p.
tive science. On the three levels identified
241), although observers have seen in recent
above (the cognitive approach, the compe- years a "trend towards the increasing use of
tence approach, and the theory of ritual ac- the third person" in popular songs (p. 240). In
tion) the argument is conducted with excep- "The I of Discourse," Urban relates the "re-
tional conceptual clarity. Every theoreticalported 'I' and the indexical referential 'I' that
move is methodically justified on theoretical points to a subject" (p. 29), reminding us that
grounds rather than in the usual intuitive or any pronoun can have the characteristics of
impressionistic manner. One certainly hopes Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness-in
that this impressive book will set the tone forvarying combinations.
future discussions of this topic. It provides an Because its contributors share the sociolog-
important theoretical framework that the an- ical belief that universal structures are con-
thropology of religion cannot possibly ignore. tained in the awareness of individuality, while

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Review

Reviewed Work(s): Rethinking Religion: Connecting Cognition and Culture by E. Thomas

American Anthropological Association, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,

ture employed by anthropologists,

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