The Savage Mind

Don’t read this book!
Or at least not this edition. I’d had it on my shelf for years and had finally begun to read it, only to discover that a new translation, Wild Thought, was published in 2021. But I persevered with this since I already owned it, and I’m not sure all the difficulty was due to the translation. Although, admittedly, I translated some puzzling passages back into French and found they made more sense.
However, aside from this, Lévi-Strauss’s thought is dense and often hard to follow. Knowing that the text is based on university lectures helps: presumably, his listeners were students of anthropology and familiar with the multitude of ethnographic studies he refers to.
Further help would have been if the English show more translation had begun with the conspectus included with copies of the first French edition. I would have known then from the outset that the author wasn’t contrasting the mind of prehistoric humanity with that of modern humans. Instead, he maintains that “wild thought” is a way of thinking we use today, especially in areas outside our expertise.
Complaints aside, I found this book often illuminating, even—at times—entertaining. One example is his comparison of the Churinga of the Andara in Australia to our archives.
Lévi-Strauss’s primary purpose is to criticize the widespread view among ethnographers that prioritizes totemism rather than viewing it as one aspect of a more comprehensive way of structuring reality. In the final chapter, he critically engages Sartre for the latter’s opposition of dialectic and analytic thought.
I made notes of many more insights and assertions that interested me, so overall, it was worth struggling through this book. I wish I’d waited until the new translation came out before making the purchase, though. show less

I had forgotten just how seminal Levi-Strauss was to literary and critical social theory- which seems to be what's left of Western philosophy- until I read this. Whether or not his systems approach is right in all its details for traditional societies is impossible for me to say. But his major contribution to anthropology- to have basically shredded its colonialist presuppositions by demonstrating that traditional peoples' way of thinking was not "primitive" in its relationship to logic and science, or to social behavior, but other-directed and coherent in itself- is magnificently evident here. His original insight is now the accepted way of thinking about cultural difference in academe. (Whether it has really penetrated beyond the show more academy, is another and a sadder question.) In any case, he is a great writer and refreshing to read--it's like clearing mental cobwebs. show less

Pensiero selvaggio» è l’ossimoro, soltanto apparente, creato da Lévi-Strauss per indicare il vincolo che unisce la «società occidentale» alle popolazioni a lei più remote: è ciò che permette a un indiano americano di ritrovare una pista da indizi infi nitesimali, a un nativo australiano di identificare le impronte su un sentiero, a un automobilista di muoversi con disinvoltura nel traffico metropolitano.
Alla ricerca di universali capaci di accomunare ogni uomo in un’unica disposizione cognitiva, Lévi-Strauss individua una struttura, profonda e razionale, grazie alla quale tutte le società elaborano i propri miti e credenze, realizzano il radicamento territoriale e l’organizzazione sociale dei propri componenti, e show more sviluppano strumenti pratici e complesse tassonomie. La loro necessità, prettamente umana, è di trarre un ordine dal fluire indistinto del reale.
Il Saggiatore ripropone oggi quest’opera capitale dello strutturalismo che, pur segnando un punto di svolta nel pensiero antropologico, ha saputo varcare i propri confi ni disciplinari intervenendo nel più ampio dibattito culturale del Novecento. A cominciare dal secco rifiuto di un universalismo astratto ed eurocentrico – evidente nella polemica contro La critica della ragion dialettica di Sartre – che, concepito al tramonto del colonialismo, non ha mai smesso di essere attuale. show less

I was dissapointed in the book. I had expectations that it would enlighten me on human bahavior, and its evolutionary roots. I found Hannah Holmes' "The Well Dressed Ape" a much better resource.

Non letto interamente ma (mea culpa) molto funzionalmente per esplorare il concetto di bricoleur. Sotto questo punti di vista, estremamente utile.

A classic, but impossible to read.

y, dj
light wear and tiny tear in dust jacket at top of spine, otherwise perfect copy, no markings inside