Lucien Levy-Bruhl

Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (April 10, 1857—March 13, 1939) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and anthropologist, famous for his study of primitive mentality and his calling for the scientific study of the categories of thought in different societies. He suggested two basic mindsets of mankind - "primitive" or “pre-logical” and "civilized."

Life

Lucien Lévy-Bruhl was born in Paris, France. He attended the Lycée Charlemagne, majoring in music, philosophy, and natural science. He graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in philosophy in 1879. He started to teach philosophy at Poitiers and Amiens but eventually decided to go back to university to get his doctorate degree. He attended the University of Paris, obtaining his doctorate in 1884.

In 1889, Lévy-Bruhl published his first book, History of Modern Philosophy in France, and several more books on philosophy afterwards. He taught in Paris until 1896 when he was appointed titular professor of the history of modern philosophy at Sorbonne. In 1902 he published Ethics and Moral Science, with which he started his life-long engagement with anthropology. This work also helped him obtain chair in the history of modern philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1904. He was also the editor of the Revue philosophique de la France et de l'étranger.

During his time at the Sorbonne, Lévy-Bruhl wrote numerous books on the nature of the primitive mind. His Mental Functions in Primitive Societies was published in 1910, Primitive Mentality in 1922, The Soul of the Primitive in 1928, The Supernatural and the Nature of the Primitive Mind in 1931, Primitive Mythology in 1935, and The Mystic Experience and Primitive Symbolism in 1938.

In 1925 Lévy-Bruhl, along with Marcel Mauss and Paul Rivet, founded the Institute of Ethnology at the Sorbonne. In 1927, he resigned from the institute and the Sorbonne, deciding to spend the rest of his later life writing and traveling. He however continued to teach, giving lectures across United States - in Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the University of California.

Lévy-Bruhl died in Paris, France, on March 13, 1939.

Work

Lévy-Bruhl’s scholarly work started with several books on philosophy. In his Ethics and Moral Science (1902) he argued against the possibility of absolute ethic, because the thought systems in different cultures lacked a basis for comparison. He thus suggested the scientific study of different cultures and their moral systems. However, although believing that moral beliefs are wholly the result of social conditioning, Lévy-Bruhl acknowledged the possibility that different cultures may share the same basic morality. He wrote:

“It may be that the characteristics of duty, and of the conscience in general, are the result of a whole mass of conditions, nearly similar, which are found in all fairly civilized human societies” (Ethics and Moral Science, p. 121).

Overall, with his Ethics and Moral Science, Lévy-Bruhl laid the foundation for his relativistic sociology.

Lévy-Bruhl opposed the rationalism associated with Emile Durkheim’s school of thought, which dominated French academia at the time. Lévy-Bruhl argued that different societies have different ways of thinking and that not all societies cherish rational thinking. In his work How Natives Think (1910), Lévy-Bruhl speculated about what he posited as the two basic mindsets of mankind, "primitive" and "civilized."

The primitive mind is mystical and “pre-logical” in its nature. It does not differentiate between the supernatural and the natural, the material and the spiritual, the self and the non-self. It rather uses "mystical participation" to manipulate the world. In another words, rather than using logical categories, it uses a "law of participation," governing supersensible forces. However, by “pre-logical” Lévy-Bruhl didn’t mean contrary-to-logic (antilogical) or deprived from any logical thought. He meant that “pre-logical” was the kind of thinking not yet fully developed into logical thinking.

According to Lévy-Bruhl, the primitive mind doesn't address contradictions. The central idea in Lévy-Bruhl’s theory was the “law of participation.” According to that, in the mind of primitive people, the same thing or phenomena may at the same time be several entirely different forms of being. Lévy-Bruhl thus concluded that “mystical thinking” was in the essence of primitive mind.

The civilized mind, by contrast, uses speculation and logic. Like many theorists of his time, Lévy-Bruhl believed in a historical and evolutionary teleology leading from the primitive mind to the civilized mind. His intention however was not to diminish primitive cultures and put them in an inferior cultural status, but to show that primitive cultures must be studied in their own terms.

Lévy-Bruhl was an "armchair anthropologist." He has never undertaken any serious fieldwork. He however had access to numerous missionary reports, ethnographic literature, and travelers' accounts that dealt with primitive cultures. By the end of his life he changed some of his stands, particularly on the polarity and irreconcilability of “civilized” and “primitive” minds. His later books dealt more with intermediate types of mind.

Lévy-Bruhl’s La Mentalité Primitive (Primitive Mentality, 1923) dealt with the primitive notion of cause, and his L'Âme Primitive (The "Soul" of the Primitive, 1928), with the idea of the soul.

Legacy

Lévy-Bruhl was among the first anthropologists who tried to show that mechanism of thinking of "primitive" and "civilized" man was different. Throughout his life he stressed the need for empirical investigation of the categories of thought in different societies. He influenced generations of scholars who investigated modes of thinking in different cultures.

Within anthropology, however, Lévy-Bruhl's ideas did not meet much acceptance and had minimal influence. Anthropologists such as Lévi-Strauss, Evans-Pritchard and John Goody attribute however some of their theories to the influence of Lévy-Bruhl. Outside anthropology, nevertheless, especially in the French surrealist movement, Lévy-Bruhl’s influence was more substantial.

Publications

• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1905. Ethics and moral science. London: A. Constable & Co.
• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1928 (original published 1927). The "Soul" of the Primitive (L'âme primitive). New York: Macmillan.
• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1938. L'expérience mystique et les symboles chez les primitifs (The Mystic Experience and Primitive Symbolism). Paris: F. Alcan
• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1949. Les carnets de Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (Notebooks of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl). Paris: Presses universitaires de France
• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1971 (original published 1889). History of modern philosophy in France. New York: B. Franklin. ISBN 0833720996
• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1973 (original published 1931). Primitives and the Supernatural (Le surnaturel et la nature dans la mentalité primitive). New York: Haskell House Publishers. ISBN 0838315895
• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1973 (original published 1903). The Philosophy of Auguste Comte. New York: A.M. Kelley. ISBN 0678009279
• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1978 (original published 1922). Primitive Mentality (La mentalité primitive). New York: AMS Press. ISBN 040414568X
• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1983 (original published 1935). Primitive Mythology (La mythologie primitive). St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 0702216674
• Lévy-Bruhl, L. 1985 (original published 1910). How Natives Think (Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691072981

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Cazeneuve, Jean. 1972. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0061360813
• Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Encyclopedia of World Biography, on <http://www.bookrags.com>. Retrieved on November 21, 2007, from <http://www.bookrags.com/biography/lucien-levy-bruhl/>
• Pertierra, Raul. 1984. Lévy-Bruhl and modes of thought a re-appraisal. ZZOA working paper, no. 42. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.
• Prandi, Carlo. 2006. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl pensiero primitivo e mentalità moderna. Leggerescrivere, 14. Milano: UNICOPLI. ISBN 8840010718

External links

All links Retrieved November 25, 2007.

• Biography of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl on Answers.com
• Biography of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl on Bookrags.com
• Lévy-Bruhl’s full-text works in French

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Lucien_Lévy-Bruhl  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Lucien Levy-Bruhl"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.