From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Ethnobiological Classification
Distribution: world
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 13:49:18 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov17.154906.2583@ils.nwu.edu> pautler@ils.nwu.edu writes:

 > I understand that the cultural divide between Aboriginals and Westerners
 > may be so great that you must be constantly on guard to prevent us from
 > underestimating it.  But I do believe that the common evolutionary path
 > we both followed until just recently makes a difference in such a
 > fundamental activity as categorization unlikely.  It's your categorization
 > of your former student as a dingo that indicates which social obligations
 > are now relevant, for example.

Sorry, I have made no such categorisation whatever. I may well perceive
two different objects, one being a human and the other being a dingo,
but it does not follow from that phenomenon that as I internalise them
I place them in categories, especially framed by any naturally occuring
universal taxonomy arising from the structure of my brain.

 > I'll readily admit that categorization is just a folk theory based on a
 > container metaphor (albeit with much evidence to vouch for it), and that
 > the Aboriginals, or someone else, could possibly invent a rival metaphor
 > that might garner as much evidence.  But it's a theory that works, and
 > we should try to extend it as long as it does.

Perhaps your theory does work in your environment, and you may well
have good reason of your own to extend it as long as you might, but I
guarantee you that it does not work in the Australian bush, and that
you will die quickly if left alone with it there. You will not even
be able to find your way from one place to the next without constantly
taking bearings with your little pocket compass. If you do want to
survive you will need to change your way of thinking fundamentally.

Perhaps one day if you come here I will teach you how to think about
country so you can walk about without a watch or compass, or bothering
much even following the position of the sun during the course of the
day. Or maybe leave you with an old grandfather up in the desert who
will quickly leave you to the children until you begin to learn for
yourself.

 > It's not a capacity argument; I'm merely arguing that vast cultural differences
 > don't necessarily indicate a difference in fundamental cognitive activities.
 > We all categorize, but our cultures may make use of that activity to a more
 > or less obvious degree.

Now you are changing the argument from universal categorisation to
fundamental cognitive activities. What I am endeavouring to have you
do is accept the notion that while we may all have a capacity for
categorisation, we do not all do so. Similarly, we may all have a
capacity for mapping relationships instead, but we demonstrably do
not all do so. There are other schemata available for making sense
of the world, not as rival academic theories but real differences
among human cultures, and I merely point out one of these to you.

I have no interest in evolutionary theory one way or the other, so
I am of sublime indifference whether you want to accept what I have
said, or how you want to reinterpret it or play with words on the
matter. You are free at any time to come and live in the bush with
traditional people, and learn about their world for yourself.

 > I don't have any argument with this.  You're saying there's a vast cultural
 > gulf, and I agree.  But that doesn't mean the cognitive infrastructure
 > differs.

I thought I already covered this. That cognitive infrastructure may
not differ does not in any way provide the evidence for a universal
taxonomy, especially in support of your evolutionary theory or the
currently fashionable Ethnobiology. Yes, Aboriginal people do work
with evolutionary theorists and ethnobiologists here, and are well
capable of understanding what is being discussed, but that does not
make the taxonomy introduced to them is either natural or universal.

Well, for all that, good luck with your endeavours.

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
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