The Cultural Grounding of Kinship

Kinship systems are conceptually grounded in culturally formulated idea-systems we refer to as kinship terminologies and through which the boundaries, form and structure of human social systems are culturally constituted. A terminology, contrary to a long-standing assumption in anthropology, is not based on a prior categorization of genealogical relations, as the latter is derived from the structural logic of the kinship terminology. The terminology structure, formally represented as an algebraic structure, can be generated from primary kin terms in accordance with a hypothesized universal theory of kinship terminology structures. Terminologies differ culturally according to the primary terms and equations used for generating them. This requires a paradigm shift from the received view of genealogy as the primary basis for kin relations to a new paradigm in which kinship incorporates both a kin term space expressed through a culturally constituted idea-system we refer to as a kinship terminology and a genealogical space constructed recursively using parent-child relations. Both of these spaces are grounded in a family space composed of parent-child, spouse and sibling positions.D’un point de vue conceptuel, les systèmes de parenté reposent sur des modes de représentation culturelle que nous appelons terminologies de parenté et à partir desquelles les limites, la forme et la structure des principes d’organisation sociale sont culturellement élaborés. Contrairement à ce que les anthropologues tiennent depuis longtemps pour acquis, une terminologie n’est pas forcément inhérente aux relations généalogiques, ces dernières découlant de la logique structurelle de la terminologie de parenté. La structure de la terminologie, représentée sous une forme algébrique, peut être produite à partir des principaux termes de parenté, suivant un principe supposé universel de structures terminologiques de la parenté. Les terminologies diffèrent, sur le plan culturel, selon les principales expressions et équations utilisées pour les élaborer. Cela implique un changement de paradigme qui nous ferait passer de la généalogie considérée comme fondement essentiel des relations de parenté à un modèle dans lequel la parenté intégrerait à la fois des termes de parenté propres à un système de représentations culturellement constitué auquel nous nous référons dans la terminologie de parenté, et une dimension généalogique élaborée de manière récursive en utilisant les relations parents/enfants. Ces deux domaines sont fondés sur un espace familial comprenant les positions de parents/enfants, conjoints, germains

The Place of Kinship in the Social System: A Formal-and-Functional Consideration With an Appendix on Descent and Alliance

This papers examines the recent controversy as to whether there is any universally defined domain of kinship in sociocultural systems from the point of view of the philosophy of science, in particular, the classical positivism (e.g., of Radcliffe-Brown and of Murdock) that I show to have motivated the question.  It also examines the American version of the controversy, as with Schneider, and shows that, again, the question arises because of essentially the radical empiricism of cultural particularism and its methodological focus.  It then proceeds to evaluate the question from a cognitive-cum-formalist perspective, and goes on the argue that Lounsbury’s approach is not only also positivist-behaviorist in its foundations but also unwilling or unable to consider kinship as a domain having regard to its function within the whole social system and therewith in fact inadequately formalist, having regard to genealogical organization.  I proceed to take especial not of the fact that, uniquely, kinship is a system of social relations that is what I cal pure-relational, that being the functional basis of its universal definition.  Finally, as an appendix, I generalize the idea of alliance to the structural organization of all kinship systems

The Place of Kinship in the Social System: A Formal-and-Functional Consideration With an Appendix on Descent and Alliance

This papers examines the recent controversy as to whether there is any universally defined domain of kinship in sociocultural systems from the point of view of the philosophy of science, in particular, the classical positivism (e.g., of Radcliffe-Brown and of Murdock) that I show to have motivated the question.  It also examines the American version of the controversy, as with Schneider, and shows that, again, the question arises because of essentially the radical empiricism of cultural particularism and its methodological focus.  It then proceeds to evaluate the question from a cognitive-cum-formalist perspective, and goes on the argue that Lounsbury’s approach is not only also positivist-behaviorist in its foundations but also unwilling or unable to consider kinship as a domain having regard to its function within the whole social system and therewith in fact inadequately formalist, having regard to genealogical organization.  I proceed to take especial not of the fact that, uniquely, kinship is a system of social relations that is what I cal pure-relational, that being the functional basis of its universal definition.  Finally, as an appendix, I generalize the idea of alliance to the structural organization of all kinship systems

A COMPUTATIONAL APPROACH TO THE COGNITION OF SPACE AND ITS LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS

To advance an algebraical-computational view of knowledge representation we examine the domain of space as an abstract relational system with wide cross domain applicability with regard to relational properties generally. It is no accident that any coherent system of relations is understood as a 'space' of such relations. Jackendoff's work shows this. We have good grounds for considering spatial relations a universal ‘modular’ faculty of human cognition.Just to set the stage for our paper and raise issues we need to address, we will first address certain fairly recent work done on the cognition of space by Levinson, Herskovits, and Talmy, and discuss their data and ours from languages like Italian, Burmese, Haka Chin, and Tongan and show that relativist conclusions follow directly from neo-behaviorist failure to be abstract enough in dealing with conceptual-relational structure.Then we will introduce basic concepts of LOCUS, PLACE, MOTION, PATH and DIRECTION and will provide definitions of spatial prepositions like ‘at’, ‘on’ and‘in’, as well as discuss in detail prepositions like ‘to’, ‘towards’, ‘from’, ‘away from’, and ‘via’. We will conclude our work by indicating a minimal universal content of the domain of space that will eventually become the axiomatizable component of the system from which the linguistic expressions derive as theorems of that same system

The Cultural Grounding of Kinship: A Paradigm Shift

English: Kinship systems are conceptually grounded in culturally formulated idea-systems we refer to as kinship terminologies and through which the boundaries, form and structure of human social systems are culturally constituted. A terminology, contrary to a long-standing assumption in anthropology, is not based on a prior categorization of genealogical relations, as the latter is derived from the structural logic of the kinship terminology. The terminology structure, formally represented as an algebraic structure, can be generated from primary kin terms in accordance with a hypothesized universal theory of kinship terminology structures. Terminologies differ culturally according to the primary terms and equations used for generating them. This requires a paradigm shift from the received view of genealogy as the primary basis for kin relations to a new paradigm in which kinship incorporates both a kin term space expressed through a culturally constituted idea-system we refer to as a kinship terminology and a genealogical space constructed recursively using parent-child relations. Both of these spaces are grounded in a family space composed of parent-child, spouse and sibling positions. French: Les bases culturelles de la parenté D’un point de vue conceptuel, les systèmes de parenté reposent sur des modes de représentation culturelle que nous appelons terminologies de parenté et à partir desquelles les limites, la forme et la structure des principes d’organisation sociale sont culturellement élaborés. Contrairement à ce que les anthropologues tiennent depuis longtemps pour acquis, une terminologie n’est pas forcément inhérente aux relations généalogiques, ces dernières découlant de la logique structurelle de la terminologie de parenté. La structure de la terminologie, représentée sous une forme algébrique, peut être produite à partir des principaux termes de parenté, suivant un principe supposé universel de structures terminologiques de la parenté. Les terminologies diffèrent, sur le plan culturel, selon les principales expressions et équations utilisées pour les élaborer. Cela implique un changement de paradigme qui nous ferait passer de la généalogie considérée comme fondement essentiel des relations de parenté à un modèle dans lequel la parenté intégrerait à la fois des termes de parenté propres à un système de représentations culturellement constitué auquel nous nous référons dans la terminologie de parenté, et une dimension généalogique élaborée de manière récursive en utilisant les relations parents/enfants. Ces deux domaines sont fondés sur un espace familial comprenant les positions de parents/enfants, conjoints, germains