ARISTOTLE'S OTHER SELF

On the Boundless Subject

of Anthropological Discourse
GREGORY SCHREMPP
Among the principles that have been suggested as capturing the essential
character of Western thought, Aristotelian logic, or its founding principle,
the law of contradiction, has proven particularly compelling. And certain other
contendersfor example, "linearity' (as contrasted with "cyclically() and even
"rationality" itselfare sometimes thought to derive from the supposedly sequential and rigorous character of classical syllogistic reasoning. This special
significance was recognized even before Lucien Levy-Bruhl, in his classic formulation of 1910, La fonctions mentales dans les societes inferieures, made the
law of contradiction a specific focus for cross-cultural comparison and contrast. The notion of contradiction was, for example, implicitly addressed in
the common nineteenth-century assumption that the evolution of thought
was a matter of transition from confused images to clear concepts. The idea
of such a transition can be found even in the Durkheimian tradition (e.g.,
Durkheim and Mauss 1903:5ff.), and is no doubt relevant to the interest that
Durkheim and his descendants showed in Levy-Bruhl.
Contradiction, and its significance in the comparative study of systems
of thought, was carried toward more technical debates in the French tradition, particularly by Levy-Bruhl and Emile Durkheim and his descendants.
In a contrast that was initially sharply drawn, Levy-Bruhl proposed that there
were systems of representations that operated in terms of a law of participation rather than a law of contradiction. He presented the latter in several
different formulations, most of which, however, center around supposed statements of "mystical" identities in which "the opposition between the one and
Gregory Schrempp is Assistant Professor of Folklore at Indiana University. His major
previous publications include "The Re-education of Friedrich Max Muller." He is currently at work on Maori and Polynesian cosmology.

the many, the same and another, and so forth, does not impose ... the necessity of affirming one of the terms if the other be denied, or vice versa"
(1910:77).
Subsequent inquiries into the possibility of alternative logics have emphasized statements of seeming identity between humans and other entities of
the natural world, notably an apparent claim of the Bororo that they are parrots. However, Levy-Bruhl himself recurrently schematized "participations" as
of three types: those between given individuals and their appurtenances (e.g.,
hair, nails, food, clothes, name, reflection, shadow); those between individuals and their social groups; and those between individuals and other entities
of the natural world. These various kinds of participations will be considered
in the course of this discussion.
It is well known that, in the posthumously published Notebooks of Levyarch', there were some significant alterations in his formulation of the participation/logic contrast. Although many of these were matters of emphasis
(cf. Horton 1973:257ff.), two are particularly important here. First, while there
was still a general sense of an evolutionary transition from a preponderantly
participatory to a predominantly logical mentality, there was a greater emphasis on both principles as fundamental to all humans, and an incipient interest in exploring the character and function of participation as a seemingly
generic principle of human mentality (e.g., Levy-Bruhl 1949:99-105). Secondly,
the emphasis on the affective, noncognitive, character of participations was
now accompanied by an uneasiness about pairing participation with logical
thought (thus treating these two principles as comparable) (1949:61, 73, 99106, 159).
Among subsequent scholars, debates about the law of contradiction developed into a fascinating set of variations, reflecting in part different questions brought to this discussion within changing intellectual contexts. In the
dialogue between Durkheim and Levy-Bruhl, the law of contradiction was
involved in several momentous debates. Horton (1973:268ff.) has contrasted
Levy-Bruhl and Durkheim with respect to their views on the nature of the
transition from traditional religious thought to scientific thought, suggesting
that Levy-Bruhl envisioned this in terms of contrast and inversion, while
Durkheim saw it in terms of continuity and evolution. But the significance
of participations to Durkheim was not limited to evolutionary issues. Durkheim's notion of effervescence and the arguments with which he surrounded
it, such as the pan pro tom argument, suppose a kind of fusion that at least
approaches the mystical participations that Levy-Bruhl proposed. Though
Durkheim's notion of contradiction is problematic (it will be considered be-

low), it is important to note that ultimately Durkheim concluded that, with

respect to contradiction, science and religion differ only in degree: both involve moments of contradiction and moments of noncontradiction, and necessarily so.
The polarity that Durkheim acknowledged as intrinsic to both religion and
science was also played out between the perspectives adopted by some of
his followers. The notion of a quasi-mystical force that is invoked by Marcel
Mauss in The Gift can be seen as a further development of one side of
Durkheim. In Levi-Strauss, by contrast, a sense of logic" prevails, though
sometimes in a rather roundabout fashion. The logical thrust is manifested
in a number of different ways, for example, in the theme of the scandalousness of contradiction as the propelling force in the development of mythologies (Levi-Strauss 1955), or the argument that the seeming identities posed
in totemic systems are essentially metaphorical and therefore really statements
of likeness rather than of mystical identity (1962). It is no accident that, in
his affectionate tribute to Mauss, Levi-Strauss (1950:45ff.) singles out the "mystification" of The Gift as a major wrong turn.
The issues raised by Levy-Bruhl still continue to arise in "rationality" debates. This is in part due to E. E. Evans-Pritchard's interest in Levy-Bruhl,
who was no doubt influential in leading him to place the analysis of contradictions, or apparent contradictions, at the center of analyses of the systems of thought he encountered in his own fieldwork (Evans-Pritchard 1937).
And though the law of contradiction no longer forms the singular pivot of
comparative analysis that it did for Levy-Bruhl, there are many contemporary
analyses in which this principle seems to linger on in the immediate background. The editors of a recent volume on "rationality," for example, comment on the notion of "relativism of reason," or the idea that
what warrants belief depends on canons of reasoning, deductive or non-deductive,
that should properly be seen as social norms, relative to culture and period.
At its most ambitious, this thought reaches to deductive logic itself. (Hollis &
Lakes 1982:10)

The law of contradiction is not specifically mentioned here. But since it is

traditionally regarded as the founding principle of formal logic, the notion
of the relativity of deductive logic as the most ambitious form of relativism
would seem not far removed from the question of relativism posed specifically
in terms of the law of contradiction.

Finally, Pierre Bourdieu has implicated Western logic, and indirectly the
law of contradiction, in a reilexivist critique of anthropological representation. He suggests that ritual practice may in some instances be organized according to a "fuzzy" or "fluid" abstraction, which permits it an economy and
flexibility grounded in and appropriate to the fact that it is a lived logic. Represented under the totalizing synopticism of the anthropological gaze, however, schemata generated through this logic can evince contradictions that
do not appear as such in their primary context, since "it is unlikely that two
contradictory applications of the same schemes will be brought face to face
in what we must call a universe of practice (rather than a universe of discourse)"
(Bourdieu 1972:110). This lived logic appears to be essentially the law of contradiction minus the "in the same sense" clause; in Bourdieu's words, the lived
logic excludes the Socratic question of the respect in which the referent is apprehended" (112). In one sense, the alignment here is the conventional one:
the tighter logic belongs to the Western analyst and the looser logic to the
indigenous system. The contrast that emerges, however, is not between different minds, but between minds engaged in different relationships to the matter at hand: living a given scheme vs. organizing it under the "fictitious"
academic synopticism.
Bourdieu's conclusion might be seen as a kind of maximum statement of
a principle that was given impetus by Evans-Pritchard: that analysis of systems of thought must be carried out within the context of social life and practice within which they operate. Bourdieu's work also exemplifies another
tendency which stems largely from Evans-Pritchard: that is, the issues first
formally posed by Levy-Bruhl are now issues specifically taken to the field
for investigation, rather than merely drawn out of standard ethnographic
sources, as they had been by Levy-Bruhl. Particularly noteworthy in this respect is Crocker's (1977) reinvestigation of theories that stem from Levy-Bruit
extrapolations about the Bororo.
In addition to these intellectual issues, some very weighty moral issues are
involved in debates surrounding the law of contradiction. On the one hand,
the denial of the cross-cultural applicability of this law can be seen as the
attempt to deny fundamental humanity to "others"Aristotle himself likened
the person who would not accept such a principle to a vegetable. On the
other hand, precisely because Aristotle announced the law of contradiction
as the best established of all principles and as the principle necessary for all
other knowledge, willingness to consider the possibility of the relativity of
even this principle can be posed as the greatest test of humanistic pluralism.
Whichever course is pursued, the moral extremes that come to focus in such

debates are no doubt related to the significance of the law of contradiction

within the Western quest for its own intellectual identity.
Given the many forms of interest that the law of contradiction has provoked, an overall assessment of this principle in relation to anthropology would
be in order, and in fact is to some extent already underway. As part of this
project there should be an assessment of the language of participations within
the theoretical discourse of anthropology itself. My comments are in general
in accord with the vision toward which Levy-Bruhl's later work seems to have
been moving, in which participations are seen not as a phase, present merely
vestigially in advanced societies, but as a general phenomenon that forms a
perennial complement to logic. The notion of a fundamental dualism of human consciousness is certainly nothing new in itself; the dualism at which
Levy-Bruhl arrived can be seen as a variation on a familiar theme of Western
thought. Yet certain fundamental ways in which such a dualism has operated
in the growth of a Western anthropological "self" have escaped attention, and
my purpose here is to bring some of these into focus.
Before proceeding, it is necessary to inject an important clarification about
the notion of "contradiction" as it will be used in the discussions that follow.
The concept of contradiction has been formulated in more than one way.
The tightest formulation would seem to be that of the formula to hold p
and not-p at the same time and in the same sense. But any statement that
does not contain the "time" and "sense" phrases is susceptible to resolution
into noncontradiction through further qualifications, either of the premises
or of the nature of the relation that is posited. From this point of view, the
"contradictions" I am treating below may in fact be ultimately resolvable.
The same is true of most if not all of the ethnographic "data" that are
brought into these debates. But even assuming that all such statements are
ultimately resolvable, there would be yet another, and not less interesting,
problem. That is, apparently there are statements that are intended to seem, at
least initially, contradictory, suggesting the possibility that the speaker feels
that certain things can best be said in the form of an ostensible
contradiction. Such statements often take the form of seeming to defy or
destroy acknowledged borders, or at least to render them problematic. In
the analyses that follow, the question of whether such statements are really
contradictory or merely ostensibly contradictory, while not dismissed, is
subordinated to the question: what is the place of such statements in
anthropological discourse?

It is of course conceivable that if there is something like the language of

participations in anthropological discourse, it crept in through the
ethnographic data. In the opening pages of The Gift Mauss discussed the
Maori term hau, which he took to signify a spiritual power inhering in the
gift, and compelling its return. In commenting on the now illustrious hau
of the gift, Levi-Strauss asked, "Are we not dealing with a mystification,
an effect quite often produced in the minds of ethnographers by indigenous
people?* (1950:47). However, the Maori text that Mauss consulted is brief
and obscure, and other interpreters have rendered it much less mystically;
it is hardly fair to credit or blame the Maori for Mauss's mystical
inclinations. Even if the Maori text may have been the proximate spur for
Mauss's doctrine, it is important to realize that there is also an analogous
doctrine, indigenous to the West, that formed a part of the theoretical
milieu into which the Maori text fell. The mysticism of Western
anthropology is a Western indigenous production; I will explore this claim
by relating some central anthropological textsfrom Durkheim, Mauss,
and Boasto a less well known, or perhaps merely less willingly
acknowledged, side of the ultimate ancestral 'totems' of Western thought.
In contrast to the idea that Mauss's mystification came from the Maori, an
at least equally compelling case can be made that it came from
Aristotle.

Logic and the Definition of Humanity:

A Founding Polarity
While the idea that Aristotle bequeathed formal logic to the West is not wrong,
pursued exclusively it eventuates in the birth of an uninteresting
ancestor. By way of alternative, one might find the paradigmatic
character of Aristotle in a certain tensionbetween a form of discourse
that centers around the law of contradiction, and one that acts as though
it is seeking to subvert it.
Epitomizing instances of a tension within Aristotle can be found, on one
hand, in the explication of the law of contradiction in the Metaphysics, and, on
the other, in the explication of friendship in the Nichomachaean Ethics. Each
of these analyses is concerned with the character of certain kinds of relation-

ships, and each analysis attempts to transcend a particular kind of partialness

and find the highest principles possible under its particular concern.
In the case of the Metaphysics, the partialness is that of the various particular sciences. But, in contrast to these, there is a science of 'being qua being," which is the province of the philosopher:
The philosopher must be able to state the best established of all principles, i.e.
those about which one cannot be deceived, which are best known and rest on
no hypothesis, and which must be known if one is to know anything. (F.3,
1005b11-17)

And then follows the venerable formula:

The best established of all principles is that the same attribute cannot at the
same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect. (r.3,
1005617-20)

The law of contradiction thus has a special status in a double sense: it belongs to the principles of being qua being, and of these principles, it is the
best established.
The partialness in the case of the Ethics has to do with the nonfinal character of many ends:
Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final than that which
is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never
desirable for the sake of something else more final than the things that are
desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore
we call final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and
never for the sake of something else.
Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose
always for itself and never for the sake of something else. (1.7, 1097a30-1097b1)

There is then a sort of rough equivalence of stature between the law of

contradiction in the Metaphysics and the end of happiness in the Ethics: each
emerges as the highest unifying principle in its particular inquiry.
Of particular significance in the treatment of the law of contradiction is the
way in which Aristotle attempts to demonstrate the necessity of this principle.
The demonstrations are constructed around an admission that this kind of first
principlethat which one must already know in order to know anything
must be axiomatic and not directly testable. The claim that the law of
contradiction is necessary in order to know anything is made compelling
though a consideration of the consequences of rejecting it. The first of these is
the consequence for discourse: one cannot discount the law of contradiction

and still argue; or, conversely, as soon as someone argues against this
principle, his opponent can point out some way in which the argument rests
on the nonequivalence of "to be" and "not to be." One important strain in
Aristotle's discussion thus has to do with consistency of proposition and
definition.
But the emphasis in Aristotle's demonstration shifts from the impossibility
of discourse to the disarray in the order of the cosmos that would obtain if the
law of contradiction did not hold: 'All things will be one-the same thing will
be man, god, ship, and the contradictories of these" (M T.4, 1008a24-25).
Many of these arguments allege our dependence upon this principle in the
negotiating of various prosaic life activities; for example,
Why does one walk to Megara and not remain at rest, when one thinks
one ought to walk there? Clearly we judge one thing, e.g. to see a man, to be
better, another to be worst. And if so, we must judge one thing to be a man,
another not to be a man, and so on. (t.4, 1008b14-27)

The fact that Aristotle passes from the law of contradiction as principle of
intellectual coherence to the law of contradiction as statement about the
order of the sensible world is significant. Two points are of particular interest
to anthropology, and both can provide a point of contrast in turning to the
other voice of Aristotle, that of the Ethics.
First of all, it should be noted that Aristotle's vision of metaphysics seems
to have been clouded in anthropology, especially by nineteenth-century evolutionist writers, from Comte on, for whom "metaphysics" was disparaged as
the realm of pure phantoms of the mind, devoid of any empirical character. It
is true that Aristotle sets out the law of contradiction in the context of a
search for the most encompassing and, hence, most abstract principles. But,
in the absence of any higher principle, Aristotle in part turns his appeal to the
opposite extreme, as it were, to immediate and prosaic life pursuits: getting
to town, avoiding mistaking a man for a battleship, and so on. Such concerns
form a central part of the context in which the law of contradiction is set out.
In pointing to the fact that conducting practical pursuits involves discriminations of better and worse, Aristotle does in a sense implicate values and
ends. But the fact that we do make evaluations regarding relative desirability
of alternatives is, in this discussion, simply assumed. The point is that he
invokes this as a self-evident truth in order to support the larger argument:
that we do make distinctions, and hence, Aristotle argues, rely upon the law

of contradiction. Questions such as How should we determine what is desirable? and What is the nature of our associations with desirable people and
things? remain peripheral. These issues belong to the Ethics.
Secondly, the fact of the several strategies for demonstrating our dependence upon the law of contradiction" is of direct relevance to anthropology.
The movement between the several strategiesor at least what could readily
appear to a modern reader as several strategiesmay have been unproblematic
in terms of Aristotle's overall vision of metaphysics. But in the present context of anthropological theory the implications of the different strategies are
critical. At one pole is the formula (p and not-p) characterization, which is
based on definitional consistency and which is not even necessarily "referential," at least in any obvious sense. At the other pole, there emerges a characterization in which "contradiction" is tantamount to failing to properly
perceive distinctions comprised in the given essences" or "substances" of things;
at certain points at least it seems that Aristotle envisioned the law of contradiction and the notions of "substance" and "essence as in some sort of
interdependent relationship.
Both of these ways of envisioning the notion of contradiction can also be
found in anthropological discussions. While the logical formula is sometimes
cited, the "contradictions" that are adduced are usually not p/not-p pairs of
propositions, but rather statements of seeming identity between objects that
Western observers consider to be "different" things, that is, distinctions such
that being one kind of thing (e.g., a 'man') precludes being another kind of
thing (e.g., a 'parrot". Most of Levy-Bruhl's characterizations of contradiction are of the latter type, as are those of Durkheim. Durkheim portrays the
contradictory character of religious thought not in terms of logically contradictory (p/not-p) statements, but in the claim that religious thought displays
an 'aptitude for confusing things that seem to be obviously distinct" (1912:
268). He goes on to portray such confusions, however, as merely one form
of the uniting of the heterogeneous:
Is not the statement that a man is a kangaroo or the sun a bird, equal to identifying the two with each other? But our manner of thought is not different
when we say of heat that it is a movement, or of light that it is a vibration
of the ether, etc. Every time that we unite heterogeneous terms by an internal
bond, we forcibly identify contraries. (271)

Durkheim thus invokes a fascinating but bizarre notion of contradiction: it

is apparently one segment of a spectrum of forms of mental copula, seemingly
distinguishable from the others only by the greater leaps that are involved.

And these leaps are not matters of definitional consistency, but of differences
in the "things" that religious thought seeks to unite.
Any full-scale history of the concept of contradiction will have to contend
with the fact of several possible characterizations whose interrelationship is
not obvious, though often treated as though it is. Some of the ambiguities
in the anthropological use of the concept have counterparts in the strategies
involved in Aristotle's demonstration of this principle. Yet, confronting the
differences in formulation of the notion of contradiction also helps us to
recognize the commonalities; the recurrent theme is the ideal of nonoonfusable
and discrete categories. And it is precisely in terms of this orienting spirit
that we can place the discourse of logic in opposition to forms of discourse
that seem to be at odds with the ideal of discrete categories, such as certain
arguments that we find in the Ethics.
In the Nichomachaean Ethics, Aristotle constructs some arguments and
definitions that appear to involve a discourse based on rules different from
those advocated in the Metaphysicsthose rules, that is, from which Western
thought purportedly derives its linear/logical character. Perhaps most intriguing and puzzling is a formula that Aristotle invokes in characterizing a friend,"
namely that a friend is a "second self" or "another self." The phrase occurs
four times within the discussion of friendship in the Nichomachaean Ethics
(Books 8 and 9), a number of times as well in Aristotle's other ethical writings
(Eudemian Ethics, Magna Marano). Furthermore, the phrase is pivotally situated: it operates as a conceptual vehicle by means of which Aristotle moves
between self-love and love of anothera movement which is critical to his
concept of human association. For example, of the virtuous man Aristotle says,
Such a man wishes to live with himself; for he does so with pleasure, since the
memories of his past acts are delightful and his hopes for the future are good,
and therefore pleasant. His mind is well stored too with subjects of contemplation. And he grieves and rejoices, more than any other, with himself....
Therefore, since each of these characteristics belongs to the good man in
relation to himself, and he is related to his friend as to himself (for his friend
is another self), friendship too is thought to be one of these attributes, and
those who have these attributes to be friends. (NE 9.4, 1166a23-33)

The "second self" argument cannot be dismissed as a mere aside, for the
Ethics is a meticulously argued work. And Aristotle is obviously quite taken
with this phrase. At the same time, the fit is awkward, in several different
ways. The awkwardness may in part be a result of various sections of the Ethics
being written on different occasions (e.g., see Jaeger 1923:201, 237-43, 376;
Annas 1977:554). But other aspects of the awkward fit are more difficult to

account for. Part of the difficulty lies in the style or strategy of presentation.
It has been noticed that certain parts of the "second self" argument are constructed very logically, in such a way as to resemble syllogistic chains. In these
the "second self" argument, however, sticks out as the "weak link" (Hardie
1968:332). In making the case that the good man would desire friends, for
example, Aristotle argues,
But if life itself is good and pleasant (which it seems to be, from the very fact
that all men desire it ... ); and if he who sees perceives that he sees, and he who
hears, that he hears, and he who walks, that he walks, and in the case of all
other activities similarly there is something which perceives that we are active
... ; and if to perceive that we perceive or think is to perceive that we exist (for
existence was defined as perceiving or thinking); and if perceiving that one
lives is in itself one of the things that are pleasant (for life is by nature good and
to perceive what is good present in oneself is pleasant); and if life is desirable,
and particularly so for good men, because to them existence is good and
pleasant (for they are pleased at the consciousness of the presence in them of
what is in itself good); and if as the virtuous man is to himself, he is to his
friend also (for his friend is another self):-if all this be true, as his own being is
desirable for each man, so, or almost so, is that of his friend. (NE 9.9,1170a251170b8)

But the discussion here is not limited merely to a given ego's circle of close
acquaintances. Aristotle suggests that
friendship seems too to hold states together, and lawgivers to care more for it
than for justice; for unanimity seems to be something like friendship, and this
they aim at most of all, and expel faction as their worst enemy; and when men
are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need
friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly
quality. (NE 8.1, 1155a22-28; cf. Politics 3.9,1280638ff.)

Aristotle in fact develops an intricate characterization-something of a

typology-of forms of government in terms of the kinds of friendship they
involve. For example, kingship involves a kind of asymmetrical friendship,
because among unequals, while the friendship of democracy is more equal.
Tyranny is a form of government lacking in friendship. The distinguished
Aristotle scholar Werner Jaeger commented that in these arguments the theory
of friendship is "expanded into a general sociology of the manifold forms of
human relationship," a "complex phenomenology of society" (1923:243). In-

deed it seems part of Aristotle's point to review the various forms of human
association or community, and to show that they all involve, or at least are
facilitated in an essential way, by friendship among the associates. The "second self" concept is thus structurally pivotal, for it is invoked as a kind of
epitomization of the character of friendship, and friendship, in turn, emerges as
the common stratum of human association in general.
The significance for anthropology is this: the concept upon which Aristotle
epitomizes human association in general is, from the standpoint of the law of
contradiction, a catastrophe. It is as if the character of human association is
epitomized in a perfect inversion of the rules laid out in the Metaphysics.
While, as noted at the outset, any ostensible contradiction can potentially be
resolved through further qualifications, this particular contradiction is not
clearly resolved in the Ethics. And, in ostensible form, it is a very special
contradictionin a way, the most perfect contradiction possible. Unlike the
examples that Aristotle cites in the Metaphysics, in which one can quibble
about equivocation in predicates, the phrase here directly conflates "same" and
"different," or "self" and "other." The "self" in Aristotle's phrasesanother
self" (allot autos) or "different self"(heteros autos)is, linguistically, the
masculine form of same subject" or "a given thing" ("to auto") that is at the
center of the law of contradiction, in the phrase, "the same attribute cannot at
the same rime belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect"
(ernphasis added). If logical argument presupposes the law of contradiction, it
can also be said that the law of contradiction presupposesin fact, can be seen
as a mere explication ofthe concept of "the same subject" or "a given thing."
A "hetmos autos" is, more precisely, a meta-contradiction, for it conflates the
very principles upon which the law of contradiction itself rests.
Having said all of that, one might argue that Aristotle is engaging in a sort
of metaphor or hyperbolethat this phrase is not really contradictory because
we recognize that it is not meant literally. After all, it is known that in the
Poetics and elsewhere Aristotle recognizes legitimate uses of hyperbolic
language; and the phrase itself is sometimes hedged ("a sort of," 'kind almost
so," etc.). That the phrase is proffered as hyperbole in fact seems like the easiest and most natural solution, and I will simply accept it from here onward.
Yet, making this assumption does not render the passage less problematic or
less interesting. The nature of the problem is merely alteredso that it consists
no longer in the fact that we cannot understand this sort of talk, but in the fact

that we can. And the question is raised of the significanceeven necessity

of this kind of calk in the context of human affection and association. Granting
the hyperbolic/metaphorical character of this language, the immediate lesson
would be: the nature of human association is to be grasped through
hyperbolic/metaphorical language. There are in fact some instances in which
social theory has followed this paradigmthat is, has accepted the mandate
that its fundamental propositions be oxymoronic in character. Some of these
will be considered shortly.
In many other respects as well, contending that the phrase is a metaphor
merely changes, rather than solves, the problem. For one thing, important
aspects of Aristotle's overall vision work less well precisely to the extent that
one accepts the phrase figuratively rather than literally. Consider, for example,
the emphasis that Aristotle accords in the Ethics and Politics to the notion of
humans as social beings, intrinsically political animals, on one hand; and, on
the other, the exceptional value that is accorded to the ideal of the selfsufficient lifea tension that in fact may be of some antiquity in Greek culture
(see Adkins 1963). The point here is that the more literally, and the less
qualifiedly, the various selves could be the same self, the more successfully
these values would be reconciled.
The metaphorical approach is further problematic insofar as many
seeming clues to the "sense" of the metaphor are ultimately misleading.
The phrase occurs for the first time in the context of a characterization of
one type of friendship, that between kindred:
Parents, then, love their children as themselves (for their issue are by virtue
of their separate existence a sort of other selves). (NE 8.12, 1161b27-29)

This phrase suggests that the metaphor might be unpacked

genealogically, for example, that the child is a "second self" to the parents
in the sense that at one time the child was part of the form and substance
of the parents, and is now is physically separated. But this interpretation
does not help with some of the other incidences, which are clearly not
restricted to friendship among kin.
There is yet another, entirely different, kind of solution possible. For
many of the examples that Aristotle invokes in the context of the
Metaphysics involve distinctions between genera of things (such as
triremes vs. men), while the "second self" argument is developed in
application to the relationship of different instances of the same (human)

genus. That is, it might be claimed that Aristotle does not intend the law
of contradiction to hold in intra-genus talk. Against this, however, it might
be argued that while it is true that Aristotle's case relies heavily on intergenus contrasts, not all of his examples are such; and it is thus doubtful
that this is the solution. But it might be noted that if this were the solution,
the significance for sociology would be momentous. The implication
would be that within this concerni.e., the relationship of the members
of a given genus, such as sets of humansthe law of contradiction is not
intended to apply; thus seemingly most of sociology would be exempt.
There is one more important point to be considered in thinking about
the attitude we should bring to the "second self" formula, and this has to
do with the larger context of the argument. At issue here is the final book
of the Ethics, Book 10, which deals with the person who would be
"dearest to the gods," a discussion which in many ways follows directly
upon the chapters on friendship. Book IO does nothing to restore a sense
of logical clarity to Aristotle's vision of the nature of human associations.
It offers no comfort for the view that "second self" could be restated in a
logically non-problematic form. The general tenor is, if anything, even
more characterized by a sense of indeterminacy of borders.
The border at issue in Book 10 is one that Aristotle had considered in
the Metaphysics (the fear that without the law of contradiction "the same
thing will be man, god, ship"). The notion of humanity in Book 10 is
subjected to a highly paradoxical treatment in which the life of the
intellect is advocated as the highest possible human happiness:
But such a life would be too high for man; for it is not in so far as he is
man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in
him. (NE 10.7, 1177b26-28).
This theme is subject to great elaboration, for example:
But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of
human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we
can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance
with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does
it in power and worth surpass everything. This would seem, too, to be
each man himself, since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It
would be strange, then, if he were to choose not the life of his self but that
of something else. (NE 10.7, 1177b.31-1178a7)

Whatever else he may be doing, Aristotle, in both the Metaphysics and

the Ethics, is searching for a definition of humanity, and in both

discussions his conception of man is posed, notably, over against the life
of a "vegetable." In the Metaphysics, it is the person who would confuse
'man" and "god" who is the vegetable. In the Ethics, by contrast, it is the
one who would not activate the life of the divine within himself who
would be the vegetablehumanity seeming to have as its essential
defining characters none other than just this possibility.
Thus the definition of humanity that emerges in the final part of the
Ethics is one in which humanity" is precariously devoid of its own
specific content. One who would not be more than human will ipso facto
be less than human, as if there are ultimately only these two possibilities.
The notion turns on an indeterminateness that, while having something
logically problematic about itin the seeming claim that what is most
essentially human is something that is not human at allyet captures a
sense of dislocation and striving that is certainly recurrent in the Western
search for a definition of humanity.
The method of establishing a definition itself is of interest here. For
early in the Ethics (NE 1.7) Aristotle argues that we should seek the
definition of humanity not in that which humans share with other beings,
as, for example, nutrition is shared with other plants and animals, but in
that which is specific to humans. This method is in no way out of
character with the discussion of the law of contradiction in the
Metaphysics. But in the final chapter, what is specific to humans turns out
to be something which they share, and in fact share as the lesser partners.
Even in his method of definition, Aristotle is turned against himself (cf.
Adkins 070204). He does not spell out the logic" of the method of
definition invoked in Book 10; but, borrowing from Levy-Bruhl, we
might refer to it as definition by "participation."

Persons and Things

in the Durkheimian Tradition
There are some basic affinities between Durkheim and Aristotle, and this
quite apart from the mere fact that both are "giants" of Western thought.
Aristotle gave us formal logic and, according to Durkheim and Mauss, a
concept of "class" that is based on "the idea of a circumscription with fixed
and definite outlines""one could almost say that this conception of
classification does not go back before Aristotle" (1903:4-5). Durkheim

brought us "socio-logic" that is, a form of sociology that is centrally

concerned with logic in its social manifestations and consequences, both in
the sense of logical operations as implicated in the form of society (e.g.,
social classification), and also the social context or character of logical
operations (e.g., the extent of its social construction and variation). But it may
be possible to pursue the analogy between the Durkheimian and Aristotelian
projects beyond the discourse of logic itself, into the kind of polarity that we
have considered in the Metaphysics vis--vis the Ethics. If there is something
analogous in the two giants, it may lie in the fact that both are masters of logic
and illogic, as if the two poles activate and propel one another.
In the context of his discussion of the principles of his sociological epistemology, Durkheim, responding to Levy-Bruhl, was led to consider the
question of whether there might be systems of thought that operate without
the law of contradiction (see Durkheim 1912:25ff.). He concluded that the
difference between science and religion with respect to the law of
contradiction was a matter of degree. Both religious and scientific thought
followed the principle of contradiction in some instances and ignored it in
others, though religion ignored it much more frequently (see Durkheim
1912:268ff.). While LevyBruhl saw the polarity as lying in the contrast
between science and religion, Durkheim saw both systems as internally
polarized with respect to this principle.
Durkheim's own sociological perspective embodies, not surprisingly, the
polarity that he attributed to both of these systems; and the polarity in Durkheim is additionally heightened by an ambiguous view of the relation of
sociology to these two systems. On one hand, sociology is a science; on the
other, it lifts some of its central concepts, such as "effervescence," directly out
of religious life, so that it is ultimately futile to attempt to distinguish religious
forms as something merely talked about scientifically from religious forms
absorbed as instruments into the theoretical perspective itself.
The polarity of Durkheim's perspective is perhaps most evident in his view
of the nature of human consciousness. For he portrays two visions of the
condition that consciousness would helplessly confront were it not for society: one in which consciousness would confront pure homogeneity (for
which society provides a remedy in the form of a model of differentiation);
and another in which consciousness would confront a kind of absolute
discreteness (for which society provides a remedy in the form of a model for
fusing disparate things). In the first case, socially/religiously generated
categories form the condition for the possibility of organized experience;

without these categories, all that is possible is a scarcely imaginable

homogeneity:
For example, try to represent what the notion of time would be without the
processes by which we divide k, measure it or express it with objective signs,
a time which is not a succession of years, months, weeks, days and hours!
This is something nearly unthinkable. We cannot conceive of time, except on
condition of distinguishing its different moments. Now what is the origin of
this differentiation? ... observation proves that these indispensable guide lines,
in relation to which all things are temporally located, are taken from social
life. The divisions Into days, weeks, months, years, etc., correspond to the periodical recurrence of rites, feasts, and public ceremonies. (Durkheim 1912:2223)

In the latter case, all is argued to be, at the level of the senses, "different
and disconnected" (Durkheim 1912:268). Religion, and specifically religious
effervescence, creates the conditions in which the first fusion of sensory data
takes place, though from the standpoint of science, it is an overfusion:
So this remarkable aptitude for confusing things that seem to be obviously distinct comes from the fact that the first forces with which the human intellect
has peopled the world were elaborated by religion. Since these were made up
of elements taken from the different kingdoms, men conceived a principle common to the most heterogenous things, which thus became endowed with a sole
and single essence....
So it was social necessity which brought about the fusion of notions appearing distinct at first, and social life has facilitated this fusion by the great mental
effervescences it determines. (268-69)

As suggested by the reference to ritual in this passage, the double movement is not confined strictly to Durkheim's view of the nature of knowledge,
but finds at least a limited expression in his functional sociological perspective. On one hand, society and religion are regarded, in an ongoing sense,
as the source of conceptual distinctions through which the world is organized
and experience given form (e.g., Durkheim & Mauss 1903:83ff.). But on the
other hand, particularly in the analysis of the effervescence of ritual, we
continue to encounter the difficult language of fusion, suggested in many
different ways, but particularly in the birth of 'this moral being, the group"
(Durkheim 1912:254), which is immanent in but not reducible to individual
consciousness, and whose contagious character can render the part equal to
the whole.

The essential polarity in Durkheim's discourse takes on some intriguing new

manifestations in Mauss's work, The Gift, which was a kind of necessary correlate of
his earlier work with Durkheim on classification (1903). The latter emphasized
the principles for distinguishing of clans and subclans, and such principles are
presupposed in The Gift. However, to the discreteness of classification, the gift poses
a counter-principle which consists of a sort of controlled interpenetration of
borders through exchange.
Prominent and recurrent in Mauss's discourse is a distinction between "persons" and
"things," a contrast no doubt given a new kind of impetus in late-nineteenth- and
early-twentieth-century concerns about the mechanization and commoditization of
human relations. In general, the term "thing," when used alone by Mauss, bears the
connotation of determinateness or discreteness, while the notion of "person" seems
more problematic with respect to borders. Personhood seems to imply an inherent
potential for a sort of contagion a spilling over onto things and perhaps onto
other personsas well as a kind of temporary alienability. Similar connotations
are also attached to some other polarities that are aligned with this one. Most
notable is an opposition of "matter" and "spirit," the former suggesting containability,
the latter uncontainability. And there is also a recurrent contrast of animation and
motion vs. inanimateness and inertness. In trying to establish the character of the
gift, Mauss frequently joins the pairs of polar terms in oxymoronic phrases such as
"perpetual interchange of what we may call spiritual matter" (1924:12). Or again,
this bond created by things is in fact a bond between persons, since the thing
itself is a person or pertains to a person. Hence it follows that to give something
is to give a part of oneself.... It follows clearly from what we have seen that
in this system of ideas one gives away what is in reality a part of ones nature
and substance, while to receive something is to receive a part of someone's spiritual essence. (1924:10)

The language that is utilized herea linking of terms which are presupposed to
be irreconcilable principlesis not somehow incidental or embellishing, but
systematic and strategic. It is precisely in such phrases that the essential character
of the gift is most fully drawn. The very explanation of the gift lies in part in
such phrases. Particularly noteworthy in this respect is the use of the Aristotelian
concepts of "substance" and "essence" to denote specifically what is transferred, for
the usual Aristotelian context of these terms is the attempt to grasp the ineradicable
and defining properties of particular things.
One might almost derive the structure of Mauss's argument from his double attitude,
this "use and abuse," of the concept of "essence." For the peculiar quality of the gift to

unite what is separate is expressed as the transference of 'essence," while

Mauss's answer to his own opening questionwhat compels the gift's
return?lies, at least in part, in a sort of reassertion of a more traditional sense
of essence as that which, removed from a given thing, would result in that
thing no longer being what it is. The gift must be returned because it is
composed of the inalienable character of the giver.
The positive mystical force of the gift is thus captured, at least in part,
through a tortured use of the apparatus of the Metaphysics, and in this sense
is implicitly set against the Metaphysics. Mauss could have done as well by
directly lifting Aristotle's already tortured concept of self from the Ethics; Mauss
might have remarked, for example, that the giver and recipient become, as
Aristotle said, one another's other selves. We can only speculate about Mauss's
reasons for taking the long route, but, whatever else it may accomplish, one
consequence is obvious: by drawing from the Metaphysics and then adding
torturings that are his own, Mauss leaves the customary anthropological image of Aristotle intact.
As merely reiterated in this peculiar implication of Aristotelian terminology, it would thus perhaps be too narrow to think of the analogy between
the projects of Aristotle and Durkheim in terms of the fact that Aristotle
brought us logic and Durkheim brought us sociologic. For it seems to be
those thinkers who have brought us the most refined logic who have also
brought us a sort of elegant illogic, as if the two poles draw each other out.
Durkheim closes his discussion of Levy-Bruhl in Elementary Forms with a summary statement about the character of religious thought with respect to the
law of contradiction:
The special characteristic ... seems to be its natural taste for immoderate confusions as well as sharp contrasts. It is voluntarily excessive in each direction.
When it connects, it confounds; when it distinguishes, it opposes. It knows no
shades and measures; it seeks extremes; it consequently employs logical mechanisms with a certain awkwardness, but it ignores none of them. (1912:271-72)

Might not this passage also be read as a statement about the general character
of Durkheimian sociology?

Natural Science and Its Complement

in the Boasian Tradition
The idea that science (like religion) encompasses both moments of contradiction and noncontradiction was important in Durkheim's assessment of the
epistemological status of sociology, for it allowed sociology to include both
moments without weakening its claim to be fully a science. In the American
tradition of Franz Boas we find some of the same polarities we found within
Durkheimian science. But rather than as a polarity that belongs to all science,
these opposed moments are embodied in the idea that there must be both
science and some complement to it, or, in other words, that there are concerns that are necessarily a part of systematic human knowledge, but which
are beyond the reach of science and require a separate epistemological grounding. Some of the issues involved in the Boasian polarity are reminiscent of
those that are present in the Levyaruhlian and Durkheimian debates about
logic and contradiction. But the issues of logic and contradiction were never
approached as directly or formally in the Boasian tradition as in the Durkheimian tradition. And partly for this reason the polarity is not as localized
it takes more the form of a general methodological tension, which the present
excursus aims to draw out. This methodological tension in Boas was predominantly a matter of his inheritance of the traditional nineteenth-century German distinction between Naturwissenschaften and Geisteswissensthaften, a
distinction largely inspired by Kantian philosophy (see Stocking 1974:10ff.).
Because Kantian philosophy figured centrally in the perspectives of both Boas
and Durkheim, it is important to delineate the main characteristics of this
influence. Emphasis will be given first to ways in which Kantian philosophy
exerted similar influences on Boas and Durkheim, and then to some important ways in which Kant affected Boas and Durkheim differently.
Insofar as Durkheim is the source of the French and British anthropological traditions and Boas of the American tradition, Immanuel Kant is the nearest thing to a common source for these twoat least as far as epistemological issues are concerned. The interest of Boas and Durkheim in Kant was
motivated in part by the concern of both to explore the character of natural
science and the relationship of social to natural science. Though Boas and
Durkheim each developed his own notion of categories, they were united in
the general idea that knowledge presupposes some kind of a priori categories.
Boas carried this idea in the direction of linguistic categories as categories of
knowledge. Durkheim's interests are marked by yet another internal polarity
of perspective. In a number of passages of Elementary Forms, Durkheim was

concerned with categories that are a priori in the sense that they are historically prior to any individualany individual acquires them from his society.
The perspective here was roughly. similar to Boas'; Durkheim emphasized the
variability and relativity of the categories handed down in different traditions, and commented on language as the locus of the categories of knowledge (1912:26ff.). But a number of other passages of Elementary Fomu signal
a somewhat different project, which is to ground specific Kantian categories
in the nature of society thought of universally and generically (e.g., social
rhythms are the origin of the concept of time, the social group that of totality, and so on) (1912:488ff.; cf. Collins 1985).
Though there is much that should yet be explored in more detail regarding
the influence of Kant on these founding figures of modern anthropology, of
particular relevance here is a matter that, in assessing this influence, is frequently passed over: that is, the enormous Aristotelian presence in Kantian
epistemology. It is specifically the Aristotle who brought us logic. The most
obvious indications of this presence are the general equating of the possibility
of knowledge with the existence of categories and the (act that Kant's table
of categories is put forward as a modification of one proposed by Aristotle.
But there is a great deal that is more specific than this. Kant was thoroughly
schooled in classical logic, and this is evident in many ways in the Cdtique
of Pure Reason. Most notably, in defining his method for discovering the transcendental categories of the understanding, Kant asserted that logic is the
source of a "sure path:
evidenced by the fact that since Aristotle it has not required to retrace a single
step.... It is remarkable also that to the present day this logic has not been
able to advance a single step, and is thus to all appearance a closed and completed body of doctrine. (1787:17)

Kant accords primacy to the classical logical syllogism, claiming that the "categories of the understanding" should be exhaustively derivable from this form.
The argument is complex, but roughly the idea is that "general logic," in the
form of the syllogism, embodies in the abstract the rules by which reason
establishes necessary conclusions; and it is by virtue of the same powers of
reason that "transcendental logic" is able to formulate necessary conclusions
(in this case, the laws of nature) when synthesizing and judging empirical experience. Thus, for example, as there are three possible kinds of relations within
syllogisms (categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive) there are also three corresponding categories of relation that apply a priori to any possible empirical

experience, i.e., inherence/subsistence, causality/dependence, and community/reciprocity (1787:111ff.). Kant held that the categories of transcendental
logic were exhaustively derivable in similar fashion. And thus, even in the
Kantian dualism that Boas inherited, one of the poles is ultimately traceable
to Aristotelian logic.
But if the aim of the Critique of Pure Reason was to exhaustively delimit
the forms that made natural science possible, it was with two complementary
ends: to firmly ground natural science, and to protect from pseudoscientific
claims those matters not attainable through it, and which belong to another
capacity, which for Kant was epitomized in religious faith and the possibility
of moral freedom.
Though Boas was by no means a strict Kantian (notably, the subjective/
objective contrast that he invoked is somewhat different from that of Kant),
some of the basic polarities of Kantian epistemology are deeply engrained in
Boas. On the one hand there was a firm commitment to natural science, in
essence a matter of categories, whose ultimate goals are classification and the
establishing of the laws of nature. On the other hand, there was a defense
of a realm of human concern beyond the scope of natural science and different in character. For Boas this other realm was similarly spiritual, though not
religious. It took the form of a kind of romanticism, pictured as a perspective
that intrinsically involves the subject's "feelings" about the object of his study.
While the complements to science posited by Kant and Boas have less in common than do their respective characterizations of science itself, there are nevertheless some points of contact. Most notably, both Kant and Boas invoked
the tradition of "cosmology" as the exemplary bearer of humanly significant
concerns that were beyond the scope of science. Kant devoted a large part
of the Critique of Pure Reason (the sections on "Transcendental Dialectic") to
the demonstration that the cosmologicaVtheological concerns of traditional
metaphysics must be forsworn as matters about which reason is capable of
making scientific claims; while Boas framed the polarity in a contrast of temperaments between the physical scientist and the "cosmographer."
While both Boas and Durkheim were heavily influenced by Kant, this sense
of a polarity between science on one hand, and a realm of intellectual/spiritual concerns lying beyond it on the other, is an aspect of Kant that influenced Boas more than Durkheim. It in fact forms one of the major ways in
which Boas' and Durkheim's perspectives diverge. Yet it is not the only way.
Considered in terms of Levy-Bruhl's tripartite classification of participations
(see above), Durkheim's and Mauss's more mystical sides would have the most

numerous affinities with those participations that accrue between the individual
and the collectivity (though the close identification of giver and gift might
also in some respects resemble the kind of participation that Levy-Bruhl postulated between the individual and his appurtenances). This merely reflects
the fact that Durkheim sets up his study around the analysis of the relationship between the individual and the collective. The American tradition of
Franz Boas, though similarly concerned with that relationship, often pursued
it indirectly, in part though the study of the process of historical growth of
the "cultures" that would variably shape and determine human behavior.
This study focussed upon various cultural "traits," many of them material,
which mediated between humans and their natural environment, and which
turned an earth of mere physical matter into a "home." And within this perspective, there appears a dualism, different from the Durkheimian dualism
in terms of concrete focus, but analogous in terms of the polar values contained within it.
The dualism is set forth by Boas in his early work, 'The Study of Geography."
Boas's discussion in fact involves several polarities, including "historical" vs.
"physical" methods; 'understanding" vs. "deduction of laws;" and
"individuality in the totality" vs. "totality in the individuality." Perhaps the
most recurrent polarity revokes around the claim that
the naturalist demands an objective connection between the phenomena he
studies, which the geographical phenomena seem to lack. Their connection seems
to be subjective, originating in the mind of the observer. (Boas 1887:642)

The discovery of the order of the world, in the form of abstract laws of
classes of phenomena, is the goal of physical science. But while the study requires a human subject, and in fact finds its motive in a human impulse for
order, the implication for the most part seems to be that the ideal espoused
is the discovery of an order that lies beyond any human "feeling" about them.
As a complement to this perspective, Boas sought to reaffirm a kind of
study which not only requires a human subject, but in which the object itself
is in some way constituted through the affectivity of the investigator. He posed
the special power that geography and cosmography had, in their character
as disciplines, to hold together concerns that now threatened to be "disintegrated and swallowed up" (1887:639-40) by specialized sciences such as geology, botany, and zoology. He found the model for geography as an integrative
perspective in the tradition of cosmography. But if geography and cosmography had such an integrative power, it was by virtue of the fact that their bound-

aries as disciplines were drawn according to an ultimately subjective concept,

such as "earth, the home of mankind" (647). The affect that is intrinsically
involved in this approach has its source in the personal feeling of man towards the world" (644), and imparts a kind of unity to the phenomena that
is not to be met with in the scientific perspective.
Ic should be noted that the difference between the physical scientist's and
the geographer's perspectives seems to consist in something that is added to,
not in something that necessarily contradicts, the quest for scientific laws.
Also, Boas' characterization of the emotional component of the physicist vs.
cosmographer is one of the more complex aspects of this text, and it should
be noted that affect is not wholly on the side of the cosmographer. The difference is not that the cosmographer is impelled in his study by the love for
his study, while the physicist is not, but rather that the physicist is moved by
the ideal of a great order of things, where the affect is towards order in the abstract, while what moves the cosmographer is things in so far as they form the
human habitat, and thus are directly, and from the start, objects of affection.
Boas ends on a note about the desire for 'gratifying the love for the country
we inhabit and the nature that surrounds us" (1887:647), and it could be that
one source for this perspective is the traditional German regard for the
fatherland and all of the complex affectivity that this notion implies. This
could also suggest in a more practical sense the difference in character of the
two perspectives. It might amount to the difference between trying to understand the Black Forest as a set of types of mineral, floral, and faunal condidons the specializations proliferated by the scienceson one hand, and trying to understand it as the Black Forest of life, legend, and national soul,
on the other.
The geographer's perspective imparts to all of the things of the cosmos a
form of unity and interrelation which itself originates in a subject's feelings
and a kind of unity that Boas saw as a necessary complement to the abstracting, classifying, fragmenting character of the specialized sciences. The notion
is not that far removed from certain moments in Levy-Bruhl, particularly those
in which the latter addresses participations "between the individual and his
group and the country which it inhabits and what that country produces"
(1949:91). The idea of the human subject as a focal point of the larger harmony of the universe is clearly one that Boas drew on from a longer tradition
of romanticist geography; one hears in it particularly the voice of Herder:
And since man is no independent substance, but is connected with all the
elements of nature; living by inspiration of the air, and deriving nutriment

from the most opposite productions of the Earth, in his meats and drinks; consuming fire, while he absorbs light, and contaminates the air he breathes;
awake or asleep, in motion or at rest, contributing to the change of the universe; shall not he also be changed by it? It is far too little, to compare him
to the absorbing sponge, the sparkling tinder: he is a multitudinous
harmony, a living self, on whom the harmony of all the powers that surround
him op-crates. (1791:293-94)

Of greatest significance here is the "self" that is portrayed; it is not discreteness that is emphasized, but rather permeability. This permeability is emphasized especially in the theme of the interconnection and interpenetration
of the substances of the universe. The substances said to be intermixed are
the most elemental qualities of the human habitat, the stuff that traditional
cosmogonies are made of man, air, light, fire, food, and drink. There is also,
in this characterization, a parallelism and near identification of the great and
the small, the universe and the self, in such a way that the self emerges as
as a pointal focus and showcase for the larger harmony that surrounds and
indeed constitutes it.
Although among some of Boas' students the focus of American anthropology shifted away from the study of growth of cultures (as reconstructed
through trait distributions), it is important to note that something of the human subject of romanticist geography remained, even within new kinds of
concerns. Most noteworthy in this respect was the influential "culture and
personality" movement, in which the study of the historical growth of
cultures was replaced by a largely synchronic analysis of the interrelationship
of individual and culture. The spiritually harmonious whole of the earth or the
cosmos gave way to the spiritually harmonious whole of a given cultural
configuration. But the notion of the self as the focus and showcase of the larger
harmony remained, and provided a potent model for approaching the relation of the
individual and culture. This model is most popularly known in Ruth Benedict's
(1934) concept of 'pattern," a concept proferred as descriptive equally of the
affective/cognitive "mainsprings of a particular culture and of the personality of
the typical individual within it.
Boas' underlying interest in the spiritual, affective self provides a means through
which to rejoin Mauss, for both perspectives in the end owe much of their effect
to a kind of special potency held to be characteristic of and distinctive to the
human subject. Though developed in different ways, both Boas' and Mauss's
perspectives rely fundamentally on a particular trope for which we find an
important prototypical statement in Aristotle, namely, the image of a potentially

boundless subject, or a "self," that, as in Aristotle's figure, "is not a static thing but
capable of indefinite extension" (Ross 1949:231). The boundless self is an affective
self, and there is a kind of implicit notion that affection draws its own
boundaries.
Certain other tendencies seem to be bound up with this image. One of these
is the sexual/procreative nexus that is situated in many mythologies (see below)
as a kind of natural symbol of the problematic character of identity and difference.
Just as Aristotle's first "second self" is the parent/child dyad, so Boas pictures the
cosmographic activity in a sexual metaphor:
The cosmographer ... holds to the phenomenon which is the object of his study
... and lovingly tries to penetrate into its secrets until every feature is plain and
clear. (1887:645)

But the tendency of greatest concern here is an inclination towards exoticism

that is recurrently associated with the image of the boundless self. The association

may be due in part merely to exoticism as a sort of inevitable expression and

consequence of the idea of boundlessness. According to Boas, the geographer
reached outward with a "desire of unveiling the secrets of regions enlivened by
imagination with figures of unknown animals and peoples" (1887:639). In a curiously
romanticized version of the standard move of the eighteenth-century "comparative
method," Benedict transposed Nietzsche's vision of the contrasting spiritual
harmonies (Apollonian and Dionysian) of the temporally distant ancient Greek
world to the (Eurocentrically-speaking) spatially distant contemporary tribes of North
America. The personalized form of exchange that Mauss was seeking to recapture
was similarly to be found in the European past and the contemporary
ethnographic distance.