18 feb 2005

I'm curious about why George Lakoff, in Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, never cites Claude Levi-Strauss. In my own mental categorization these are two of the authors whose thinking about categories is most useful. Lakoff does draw on some structuralist anthropology, studies of kinship systems and the like. Several hypotheses:

1) Intellectual traditions, styles. Lakoff is not at home in the French tradition; he doesn't even feel called on to refute structuralism, although he does take on Whorf and Chomsky closer to home. I'm sure he wouldn't say that Levi-Strauss is less distinguished in this field than Whorf or Putnam. Or maybe he would?

2) Occam's razor, parsimony. He doesn't need to cite Levi-Strauss to make his argument. He doesn't need to trace the steps of an intellectual development that turned out to be a dead end from the point of view of cognitive psychology.

3) Lineage. He traces an intellectual lineage from Wittgenstein through Austin and doesn't need to branch out to look at parallel traditions. (This is another version of # 1). Other versions: Social situation of his research: the other writers he cites and feel close to don't cite Levi-Strauss; nobody in his intellectual circle would "miss" Levi-Strauss in the bibliography.

4) Anxiety of influence. If he did discuss Levi-Strauss it would turn into a book about Levi-Strauss. Better to leave him out completely! Levi-Strauss already demolishes the "objectivist" view that Lakoff also damages, though with a different intention and without drawing on the same body of empirical research, which didn't yet exist.

5) Mayhew's fallacy. Just because I see a connection or potential filiation here does not mean there is one. I am way off track in even suggesting such a thing. Thus the entire problem is a false one.

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