Tambiah, Stanley J. Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality. CUP, 1990.

Magic, science and religion in Western thought: anthropologys intellectual legacy (1) Magic vs. religion a. Protestant opposition of magic and religion b. Enlightenment made religion an object of study (2) Religion vs. science a. Protestant and Puritan doctrines complemented scientific inquiry b. Their doctrines advanced the separation of religion and science as autonomous modes of inquiry c. The capitalist economic ethic became separated from religion and became traditionalized and routinizd as secular orientation (31) (3) The intelligentsia vs. the masses a. Their differences in beliefs/ideologies b. Dominant paradigms and legitimating ideologies emerge from the intelligentsia c. The decline in magic (as conceived by Protestantism in the 16 century) Sir Edward Tylor versus Bronislaw Malinowski: is magic false science or meaningful performance? Tylor-Frazer program: sees magic, science, religion in a developmental framework and judges magic and religion by the yardstick of modern scientific rationality. Wittgenstein speaks of truths only having meaning in a given system. One makes category mistakes when the validity or truth/falsehood of a practice/belief is judged by a system different from the practitioners. Frazer was guilty of doing this, and, hence, could only think of primitives as stupid and idiotic. Wittgensteins remarks bear a tension: he emphasizes the unity of mankind as the basis on which we can understand and translate the practices of others in our own language and yet he stresses language games and forms of life which imply the particularity of cultures. Malinowskis demarcations and his exposition of the magical art The ethnographic theory of the magical word: The special character of ritual speech: (1) Intrinsic character as being rooted in sacred uses and possessing distinctive features (2) Context of native belief in the profusion of powers in the world and in the co-existence of magical speech with these forces from the very beginning (3) Coefficient of weirdness: strange grammatical forms, esoteric word meanings, condensed structures, metaphoric and mythic references, etc (74) There are two crystallizations of language in all societies, that of technology and science verses that of magic and persuasion. Multiple orderings of reality: the debate initiated by Levy-Bruhl Participation versus causality: two orientations to the world: Some representations of causality and participation Causality Participation Ego against the world. Egocentricity. Ego/person with the world, a product Atomistic individualism. The of the world. Sociocentrism. The language of distancing and neutrality language of solidarity, unity, holism, of action and reaction. The paradigm and continuity in space and time. of evolution in space and time. Expressive action that is manifest Instrumental action that changes through conventional intersubjective matter and the causal efficacy of understandings, the telling of myths technical acts. The successive and the enactment of rituals. the fragmentation of phenomena, and performative efficacy of their atomization,in the construction communicative acts. Pattern of scientific knowledge. The language recognition, and the totalization of of dimensional classification phenomena. The sense of (Piaget). Science and experimentation. encompassing cosmic oneness. The The doctrine of representation language of complexive (Foucault). Explanation classification (Piaget) dictated by contiguity relations (Wittgenstein). Natural scientific and the logic of interaction. The doctrine of objectification and explanation of resemblance (Foucault). Form of life (Wittgenstein) events (K. Apel). and the totality of experience associated with it. chart from p. 109. Rationality, relativism, the translation and commensurability of cultures

Rationality: Tambiah seems to reject using the criteria of consistency and coherency as universal yardsticks of rationality in favour of a recognition that there may be multiple rationalities. Translation: The translation of cultures has two implications: (1) that there is shared space, common experience, shared notions intelligibility and rationality between the two parties, and (2) that the observer was successful at applying his/her own categories and thought systems to the evaluation, systemization of the other party. Translation involves probing what intelligibility looks like in the culture we are studying and then bringing it into (intelligible) relation with our own culture (123). Putnam on concept and conception Translation does not require identical phenomena but rather intelligible phenomena. Two modes of comparison: reducing to a common measure, measuring by a common unit vs. making proportionate, the act of proportionating Relativisms and universal claims: It is possible to take a more complex position between these extremes [relativism and absolutism], and strive towards comparison and toward general judgments wherever they are appropriate and possible, and to leave other matters n an unsettled state until better information and superior frameworks make comparative evaluations possible (129). Comparison: There are three possible outcomes when attempting to compare phenomena between cultures: a state of commensurability; a state of relativity; and a state of incommensurability. The ground rules: (1) Comparison requires a base of agreement from which differences or disagreements can be established. (2) If two phenomena project mutually exclusive explanations to the same problem, then we have the most straightforward scenario for comparison. (3) If there is a straightforward way of judging between the two phenomena, then relativism will have been banished. (4) A relativistic situation occurs when the two phenomena are equally plausible, efficacious, etc., in their own contexts, such that neither side needs abandon its practice. (5) When two phenomena operate on different presuppositions and they represent different forms of life, then they should not be compared and there is no basis for setting up the question of relativism. Modern science and its extensions Science as a social phenomenon The scientists as agents of world transformation and the sciences as economic force The problem of the permeation of scientific method and values into all areas of life with the effect of the atomization of life. The technical sciences that we have allowed to proliferate may not be able to deliver the best moral rules we wish to live by (151). [W]e cannot discover and realize the values of the interconnectedness of persons, the aesthetic and sensory modalities of social communication, and the ultimate concerns of human life, if under a totalitarian subjection to causality we repudiate or block out all those other orientations which I have for rhetorical purposes grouped under the label participation (152).