16 GA. The Cognitive Evolution of Mankind
We're sure that human intelligence is now so superior to the ancients. We wonder, are we really advancing? (3,500 words) after Ernest Gellner
[I view this article as a springboard for contemplation, not as the proof of a position.]
One persistent attempt to find a thread in the history of mankind focuses on the notion of Reason. Human history, on this view, is the unfolding of rationality. Human thought, institutions, social organization, become progressively more rational. The idea that Reason is the goal or end-point of the development of mankind can fuse with the view that it also constitutes the principal agency which impels humanity along its path. It seems natural to suppose that changes in human life spring from growth of our ideas, our ways of thought. What is conduct if not implementation of ideas? If we improve, is it not? because our ideas have improved? Though somewhat suspect as the fruit of vainglorious self-congratulation by nineteenth-century Europeans, the role of thought and reason still deserves some consideration.
The problems and difficulties facing a reason-centered view of history are considerable. No doubt the idea is far less popular now than it was in the heady days of rationalistic optimism, which stretched, in one form or another, from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. But, in a sober and not necessarily optimistic form, it remains necessary to attempt some kind of sketch of the cognitive transformation of mankind, from the days of hunting to those of computing. The nature of our cognitive activities has not remained constant: not only have things changed, but the change has also been deep and fundamental. It is not merely a matter of more of the same. The changes that have occurred have been changes in kind.
A convenient baseline or starting point for the discussion of this problem is provided by the blatant absurdity, (of some at least), of the beliefs of primitive man. Many of us like to think that the standards of what is acceptable in matters of belief have gone up, and that the advance of reason in history is manifest in this raising of our standards. We have become fastidious and shrink from the beliefs of our distant ancestors, which strike us as absurd. Perhaps, so as not to prejudge an important issue, one ought to say - it is the translations frequently offered of some of the beliefs of some primitive men which now seem so absurd. It may be — and some have indeed argued this — that the absurdity is located not in the original belief itself but in its translation, inspired by a failure to understand the original context. On this view, it is the modern translator, and not the savage, who is guilty of absurdity.
The apparently sustained and systematic absurdity of the beliefs of primitive man helps to set the background for our central question. Are they wrong and are we right? Or are we playing radically different games, legitimately measured by quite independent criteria? And if their problems and their answers are different, are they linked to ours by some developmental series? And if not, what is the nature of the chasm which separates us from them? Is it indeed a chasm?
These seemingly absurd and really mistranslated assertions are not really statements about the physical environment at all. They generally occur in a ritual context, and they are "really" statements about the social order of which the native is a member. The apparent empirical content is really a re-affirmation of the social order. The semantic complexity, the variability of real meaning with context and purpose, misled the observer, who was, alas, in any case only too eager to find exotic oddities and to indulge his own vainglorious sense of intellectual superiority.
This account is indefensible. If what the member of the alien culture really meant was simply the proclamation of his loyalty to the social order of his community, {why on earth is he not translated as saying precisely that} Is it really a mere accident that the very same terms are used both in an empirical and a ritual context? Are no absurd beliefs ever pervasively held by a society?? Is there really no use for the idea of false consciousness, of institutionalized error contributing to the very foundations of a social order? Are there not countless examples of the use of magical connections for purposes of manipulating the environment, treating such connections as if they resembled ordinary causal ones?
Above all — has there really been no overall, long-term change in human mentality? Did primitive man really know how to segregate perfectly sensible empirical observations from culturally specific re-affirmations of adherence to his own social order? Was his basic internal intellectual economy the same as ours? Is there really no tale to tell of the intellectual history of mankind?
Of the two polar positions, one, which credits primitive man with a kind of perpetual logic-shunning inebriation, fails to account for his outstanding and indisputable competence in coping with his physical environment. The other, which redefines his terms for him so as to endow him with our own logical fastidiousness, and exculpates him from the charge of absurd convictions, fails to account for the radical discontinuity which does exist between primitive and modern mentality. In the name of a tolerant relativism, it pretends, absurdly, that all cognitive systems are equal. Claiming to recognize diversity, it obscures fundamental and deep differences. Faced with the historical battles between rationalism and faith, or indeed between fastidious, codified faith and luxuriant superstition, it has nothing to say. Yet these conflicts were of great historic importance. The charitable view cannot cope with the great tensions which are a central theme of our history, and it can only see them as mere misunderstandings. But they were far, far more than that. Is there an approach? which can accommodate both insights, which can recognize the great empirical sensitivity of primitive man and also the discontinuity between him and modern cognition styles?
The error underlying each of these contrasted positions is the failure to appreciate something which is a commonplace in sociology. It is a point which, curiously enough, has not been introduced sufficiently into the discussion of the problem of knowledge. The point in question is the difference between single-strand or single-purpose activities on the one hand, and multi-strand activities on the other. A multi-strand activity (the use of speech, in this case), which serves multiple criteria or ends, is treated as if it were a single-strand one. It is assumed that primitive men or man in general must either be making observations about the physical world (bulls are or are not cucumbers), or recording his loyalty to a given social order, by means of a ritual formula. It is assumed that this distinction is at least tacitly understood. The possibility that these two activities (and others) might be conflated and intertwined in complete and ambiguous and sliding-scale ways is excluded. In other words, the assertions of primitive man are treated as if he were the heir and beneficiary, as we are, of a complex, systematized, conscious and orderly division of labor, within which diverse functions and aims tend to be clearly and distinctly separated. In our society, such a separation is systematically inculcated and highly prized, and the muddling-up of aims is reprobated. Primitive man, however, has no need for such distinctions; the functioning of his society may indeed depend on their absence.
It makes sense to ask a modern man whether he is making an empirical observation or affirming his loyalty to the hierarchy and structure of his own society. If endowed with the appropriate educational background, he may understand the question. There is even the possibility that he will answer it accurately. But is there any reason to suppose that this neat separation of functions is so inherent in the very nature of things that — given a bit of trouble about terminology and translation, perhaps - the savage could also grasp it? Is it everyone's birthright, or is it on the contrary, the special accomplishment of one rather eccentric tradition, the fruit of very unusual circumstances? Is the division of labor, and the separation of functions, inscribed into the very constitution of nature and thought; or on the contrary, does not nature, and society for that matter, prefer to use one tool for a variety of ends, and one end to be served by many tools ? We, who have been drilled into acquiring a fine sensitivity for the difference of aims and functions, must beware of projecting it onto all others. It may be an eccentric, perhaps even a pathological accomplishment.
The assumption of the inherent neat separation of diverse linguistic functions is so weird that, once challenged, it could readily be discarded. There is no excuse for projecting our own sensitivity, arduously acquired in the course of a very odd and distinctive historic development, onto humanity at large, let alone onto early man. The division of labor, and the separation of questions which is but one aspect of it, is a late accomplishment, and not a birthright of all mankind.
If we refrain from indulging in this misguided assumption, what is the correct way to think of primitive mentality? Multi-stranded, in activities other than cognition, is a familiar and common notion. The idea is simple: in a complex, large, atomized and specialized society, single-shot activities can be "rational". This then means that they are governed by a single aim or criterion, whose satisfaction can be assessed with some precision and objectivity. Their instrumental effectiveness, "rationality", can be ascertained. A man making a purchase is simply interested in buying the best commodity at the least price. Not so in a many-stranded social context: a man buying something from a village neighbor in a tribal community is dealing not only with a seller, but also with a kinsman, collaborator, ally or rival, potential supplier of a bride for his son, fellow juryman, ritual participant, fellow defender of the village, fellow council member.
All these multiple relations will enter into the economic operation, and restrain either party from looking only to the gain and loss involved in that operation, taken in isolation. In such a many-stranded context, there can be no question of "rational" economic conduct, governed by the single-minded pursuit of maximum gain. Such behavior would disastrously ignore all the other multiple considerations and relationships which are also involved in the deal, and which constrain it. These other considerations are numerous, open-ended, intertwined and often incommensurate, and hence do not lend themselves to any cost/benefit calculation.
In such circumstances, a man can live up to a norm, but he cannot really serve a clear single aim. Norms are complex: while aims should be simple and clear. An instrumental and more or less quantified rationality presupposes a single measure of value, in terms of which alternative strategies can be assessed. When there is a multiplicity of incommensurate values, some imponderable, a man can only feel, and allow his feelings to be guided by the overall expectations or preconceptions of his culture. He cannot calculate. Single-mindedness and cold assessment of options, by contrast, when it does obtain, requires a rather special social setting, and one that is generally absent from simpler societies. The fewer the members of a community, the more conflated / many-purpose, its agenda. Large societies can afford the luxury of neatly separated activities (though even they do not necessarily, or universally adopt it).
But the same kind of the many-stranded is clearly also likely to pervade the use of language in simple and smaller societies. A man indulging in a socially recognized and acceptable noise-pattern — in brief, saying something - cannot simply be assumed to be doing one thing only. He can plausibly be expected to be doing a number of things at once. Our strategy, when approaching our problem, is to invert this baseline assumption. We have tended to assume that men do one thing at a time, and that they neatly separate diverse activities, because that is indeed a central part of our own ethos and education; therefore, if men do a number of things at once, we feel that that needs to be explained. The opposite is true: it is the single-stranded, the neat and logical division of labor, the separation of functions, which needs to be explained, and which is exceptional, and whose emergence is the form in which “Reason” enters history. The conflation and confusion of functions, of aims and criteria, is the normal, original condition of mankind. And it is important to grasp this point fully. A multi-functional expression is not one in which a man combines a number of meanings because he is in a hurry and his language has offered him a package deal: on the contrary, the conflated meanings constitute, for him, a single and indivisible semantic content.
Any given multi-strand use of language may serve two, three, or any number of purposes and criteria. There is no reason whatsoever to assume that any one figure is pre-eminent or privileged, or that the same number is found in all spheres of language. We shall concentrate on a dual-purpose model, but only because all the relevant complications arising from the many-stranded, of any degree, are already to be found in the dualism model: not because duality is in any way privileged or typical. A mystique of the binary is found in some recent theories in anthropology, but it plays no part in the present argument. The relative simplicity of two-term models is only an aid to exposition. Duality is not privileged, but it does constitute the simplest way of approaching the problems of plurality.
See if this example makes sense? (Or not)
Once one recognizes that a given verbal expression serves two purposes, its use in a given society will only be describable by means of an at least two-dimensional diagram. But let us begin with a single-dimensional one: CASE ONE “It is raining”.
The phrase naively translatable as "it is raining" may, along one dimension, be "referential". It is linked, "operationalized", related to an independent reality, namely rain. The phrase receives the high grading (translated as "truth") if it is indeed raining, a low mark (denial) if it is not, and may receive a borderline or ambiguous grading if the weather itself is dubious.
But, at the same time, the native phrase may also be part of a ritual, linked to social situations rather than to nature. As such, it may receive high marks if the high priest or village shaman has said the same, a low mark if he has denied it, and a suspended sentence if he has kept silent. Acceptance of the grading by a member of the society indicates his conformity and his identification with the authority-structure of his own society. In this context, he is not theorizing about nature; he is endorsing (or of course repudiating, as the case may be) a social order.
High priest says it is raining
High priest silent
High priest says it is not raining
The gratuitous assumption which we are challenging is that the speaker must himself be distinguishing the two activities, reference to nature and loyalty to social order - the supposition that their separation lies in the very nature of things, or in the very nature of speech or thought. It does not. On the contrary, an air of referential objectivity may underwrite his support of the high priest; and an air of transcendent endorsement may in turn pervade his recognition of a natural state of affairs. Why separate them? Why should they not reinforce each other?
Conflation of ends is far more common, and in some sense more natural than their neat separation. The conflated multi-purpose role of the expression, in its particular social setting, is “its meaning". The man in question, does not think of himself as simultaneously indulging in meteorology and politics, commenting on the weather and emphasizing his alignment. The two are fused. This endows his politics with a natural vindication, and his meteorology with a social sanction. This is the life which the expression leads within its speech community, and it knows no other. Consider the matrix of the real multiple use of the expression:
R a i n i n g A m b i g u o u s N o t - r a i n i n g Priest says yes Priest silent Priest says no
Referentialists, as one may call them, have imposed the referential use of language as somehow primary and basic onto pre-division-of-labor man. They have treated the second rank (when the priest is silent), seen in isolation, as giving us the "real meaning" of the assertion. The rest is a kind of social accretion. Coming across fact-contradicting uses (the two "conflict" squares in the first and third rank), they either had to accuse primitive man of defying logic - if he deferred to priest rather than to nature — or to say that, in these cases, the phonetically identical phrase is used, but in a different sense. The absurdity or fact-denial is then blamed on the translator, who had treated homonyms as a single concept.
By contrast, adherents of what may be called the social theory of meaning have concentrated on column two, in which, by our act of analysis, the social aspect (of this simplified situation) is isolated. In this column, extraneous fact plays no part. In our example, it is so because the weather is doubtful; empirical reality has passed no clear verdict. All that is recorded here is the respect which the speaker accords the hierarchical ordering of his own society.
The diagonal descending from left to right may be called the Diagonal of Confirmation. The vision of our high priest, the divine inspiration of our doctrine, is confirmed by the remarkable physical convergence observable along this line.
He saith it raineth, and behold, it raineth. He saith it raineth not, and it raineth not. He keepeth mum, and behold, you can't tell what the devil the weather doeth.
There is another important diagonal, rising from left to right. This may be called the Diagonal of Conflict. Ritual occasions are normally distinguishable not merely by a certain stilted language, but also by the defiance of fact and logic.
A heightened sense of occasion can be brought about not merely by excessively formal or informal conduct and clothing, but also by logical and factual eccentricity. If it really were the case that the savage, or indeed the believer in sophisticated societies, never said anything which defied the normal conventions of logic or meaning, how could such special highlighting be secured? How could the special effect be achieved? Life would be lived permanently in the same semantic key, and it would be dull, without even a quickening of sensitivity.
Without absurdity, no logical fireworks. If the affirmation "This cucumber is a bull" had nothing paradoxical about it; if it were a mere mistranslation of: we carve up this cucumber in a ritual manner so as to reaffirm our adherence to our social order, and whilst doing so, refer to it by the term which just happens on other and ordinary occasions to be used for bulls, would anyone feel any excitement? Attempt a similar re-translation of the affirmation that the wafer is the body of Christ. . . If transubstantiation were merely the use of one word for two, by way of phonetic economy, would it have any deep resonance? The doctrine of the Real Presence is an attempt, in advance of time, to disallow over-charitable anthropological interpretation. If indeed the apparent empirical absurdity were generally but a mistranslation of something social and commonsensical, how could the sense of social occasion be generated by defying logic — if in fact no such defiance had occurred?
Our model depicts a so-to-speak two-dimensional sensitivity: a system of expression which responds to two sets of constraints, one located in nature, the other in society. In the real life of societies and language, there can often be not two, but many simultaneously operating constraints or controls. We have selected two which are crucial to form an argument. Empiricists talk as if concepts were only "operationalized" by being linked to processes in nature. Anthropologists concentrate on expressions which have a conspicuous "social" operationalization, as a "function". In fact, expressions are far more often than not linked to social processes. Generally, the rules governing the use of a given word "operationalize" it in both directions at once. But their multiple life is experienced as one single life.
What did we say above?
-Is Human history is the unfolding of rationality?
-Is Reason is the goal or end-point of the development of mankind?
-Conduct is the implementation of ideas.
-It's necessary to attempt some kind of sketch of the cognitive transformation of mankind, from the days of hunting to those of computing.
-Have the standards of what is acceptable in matters of belief gone up?
-The judgment benchmarks are our modern ones, which may not apply universally.
-Speech is used both empirically and in a ritual context.
-One perspective credits primitive man with a kind of perpetual logic-shunning inebriation.
-The other redefines his terms for him, so as to endow him with our own logical fastidiousness.
-A multi-strand activity (the use of speech, in this case), serves multiple criteria or ends simultaneously.
-The fewer the members in a community, the more conflated / multi-purpose, its agenda.
In a complex, large, atomized and specialized society, single-shot activities can be viewed as "rational". This then means that they are governed by a single aim or criterion, whose satisfaction can be assessed with some precision and objectivity.
In a many-stranded social context: a man buying something from a village neighbor in a tribal community is dealing not only with a seller, but also with a kinsman, collaborator, ally or rival, potential supplier of a bride for his son, fellow juryman, ritual participant, fellow defender of the village, fellow council member.
THIS IS A DIFFERENT KIND OF RATIONALITY
(What do you think?)