ANT1004 22Apr2016

Review of Last lecture

● Symbol = something that stands for something else

● Debate around religious beliefs - symbolic or literal content
● we attribute religious beliefs to people all the time
○ E.g. ‘Mary believes that God helped her son recover from disease’ - is
God literal or not does Mary believe that a supernatural agent
intervened in her sons illness?
○ Or does the God she speak of symbolise something else?
● For Durkheim - the worship of god was in fact worship of society
● Criticisms:
○ Basic Fallacy
○ See PPT slide ‘Durkheim’
○ Durkheim thought people’s beliefs in spirits were clearly ‘false’ and
could not be literal - he thought beliefs were symbolic (of society)
● But remember Anthropology does not seek to demonstrate if religious beliefs
are true or false - anthro seeks to understand the content of the beliefs
(meaning)
● Take a look at Horton’s reading (3 pages with useful summary of the various
symbolic approaches)

Literalist and Intellectualist Perspectives on religious beliefs

Literalist Perspective

● See reading by Ross

● ‘Religious beliefs in tribal societies Mean exactly what they say
● we must take their beliefs seriously - understand their beliefs from their point
of view
● If you were to tell a religious person that their beliefs actually meant they were
really worshipping society, this would not make any sense to them, so how
can we claim their beliefs are only symbolic?
● We should interpret religious beliefs by considering what people think and
say

Intellectualist perspective

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ANT1004 22Apr2016

● See powerpoint slide for definition by Ross (sorry! Paolo was going very fast
through the slides!!)
● Horton’s Theory Building Thesis
○ Primitive religion and western science or products of identical thought
processes
○ are primarily generated by the Human desire to explain and control
their environment (e.g. prayers for good fortune)
○ Science also seeks to explain and control
○ Religion like science is theoretical:

Basic Beliefs

Common Sense Theory

Magic Religion Science

● See PPT slide ‘General Properties of Common sense’

● Common sense beliefs (basic understanding of the world) are universal:
○ E.g objects and people exist independently of human beings
○ Self vs others, humans vs non-humans

General Properties of Theories

● We can see science and religion are not that different

● they are both theoretical
● Theory places things in a causal context wider than that provided by common
sense
● explanations to identify cause and effect (both science and religion)
● there different levels of theoretical entities.
● interpretations between levels lead to paradox (see slide for diagram)
● human Minds use analogies to explain events

Tradition and modernity

● religious and scientific theories develop different contexts but similar

processes

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Closed prediction Open Prediction

No recognition/ awareness of Awareness of alternative theoretical

alternative schemes schemes

Sacred beliefs anxieties over alternative non-sacred beliefs no anxieties

to alternative ideas

● See PPT slide : ‘Unreflective vs reflexive thinking

In science there is clear connection between first observable event, theoretical

entities, and second observable events, In religion this is not so clear