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(1970) Sociological theory and philosophical analysis, Dordrecht, Springer.
Lévi-Strauss's book is like a Chinese puzzle box in which a number of bits of wood of seemingly random and eccentric shape can with ingenuity and patience be fitted together to form a perfect cube. Turn the whole thing upside down; the total shape is the same but the combination seems quite different. I have now read La pensée sauvage from beginning to end at least three times and on each occasion I have obtained a very different impression of how it all fits together. It all depends on what you take to be the leading theme. In this essay I am writing with the prejudices of an English social anthropologist and it could be that, from the author's point of view, I have altogether missed the point. The considerable section of the final chapter which is taken up with a commentary upon Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique de la raison dialectique is cettainly quite outside my comprehension.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-15388-6_9
Full citation:
Leach, E. (1970)., Telstar and the aborigines or la pensée sauvage, in D. Emmet & A. Macintyre (eds.), Sociological theory and philosophical analysis, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 183-203.
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