Original thinking

Author: Levy-Bruhl
Publisher:
Publication Date: 1981-01-01
Features: Lucien Levy-Bruhl (Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 1857—1939), a French bourgeois sociologist, published his book The Mental Functions of Inferior Societies (Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures) in 1910. In this book, he compared the thinking of peoples belonging to the "Mediterranean civilization" with that of peoples not belonging to the "Mediterranean civilization," essentially comparing the thinking of the "white adult civilized people" of the developed capitalist societies in modern Western Europe with the thinking of the vast colored peoples of Asia, Africa, Oceania, North America, and South America, whom he called "primitive people," "savages," "underdeveloped peoples," and "inferior peoples." The result was that he determined that "the mental processes of primitive people are not consistent with the mental processes we are accustomed to describing in ourselves," and he believed he "could discover where the differences lie and could determine the general laws of the thinking of primitive people." What general laws did Levy-Bruhl determine for the thinking of primitive people? He believed that the thinking of primitive people is concrete thinking, that is, thinking that does not know or apply abstract concepts. This kind of thinking only possesses countless "collective representations" passed down through generations with a mystical nature. The relationships between these "collective representations" are not governed by any laws of logical thinking; they are interconnected through the "mystical interpenetration between entities and objects." Especially, this kind of thinking is completely unconcerned with contradictions (it does not pursue contradictions, nor does it avoid them; it can allow the same entity to exist in two or several places at the same time, allow the singular and plural to be the same, the part and the whole to be the same, and so on). Therefore, from the perspective of the nature of the relationship between representations, Levy-Bruhl also called this kind of thinking "pre-logical" thinking. In summary, the thinking of primitive people is a mystical, pre-logical thinking based on collective representations governed by the law of interpenetration. This is the definition Levy-Bruhl gave to the thinking of primitive people. It should also be noted that while Levy-Bruhl divided human thinking into two major types, he also affirmed that the functions of human thinking are the same, with the only difference being the structure (type) of thinking. Twenty years later, in the Author's Preface to the Russian Edition, he said again: "Among humans, there are no two forms of thinking separated by an impenetrable wall—one is pre-logical thinking, and the other is logical thinking. However, in the same society, it is often (perhaps always) the case that different thinking structures coexist in the same consciousness." This clearly refers to all of humanity, including the "Mediterranean civilization." Additionally, Levy-Bruhl ambiguously indicated that when it comes to things related to production and life, primitive people use logical thinking. Only when it comes to issues of cognition, especially when it comes to the laws of causality and contradiction, do they use pre-logical thinking, which is vividly reflected in the search for mystical causes. The above is the main argument of this book. Levy-Bruhl was one of the representatives of the French sociological school led by Durkheim. This school adhered to the principle of Machism that "social existence and social consciousness are the same" and sought to establish its own "social psychology" through the analysis of what it called "collective representations." Durkheim's sociological theory is based on the concept of collective representations. At the same time, these collective representations are not reflections of social existence but are passed down from generation to generation through memory and imitation. "Collective representations" are equivalent to "collective experience" in Machist works or Bogdanov's "socially organized experience." Lenin exposed and criticized these views in his book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism long ago. Levy-Bruhl specifically applied Durkheim's concept of "collective representations" to study what he called the thinking of primitive people. Levy-Bruhl, with bourgeois prejudices, starting from the positivist standpoint, separated the "Mediterranean civilization" from all of human civilization and included all other societies, regardless of their stage of development, into a so-called "inferior society" model. As a result, all of humanity only has two social types, which correspond exactly to two types of thinking. This is not accidental. Because Levy-Bruhl's historical view is idealist. As we know, there was once a "Eurocentrism" in the study of history, which believed that the regions east of Suez, including all of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, were primitive and uncivilized, with no history, let alone a history of civilization. Levy-Bruhl was undoubtedly a believer in "Eurocentrism," which made it difficult for him to conduct objective historical investigations. We believe that since the emergence of human society, the development of thinking has also been an evolutionary process. It can be imagined that ancient humans, freshly detached from the animal kingdom, would naturally not have logical thinking. Later, due to the common needs of labor, language emerged, which in turn led to the formation of simple languages and equally simple grammars, thus opening the way for logical thinking. However, in primitive society, logical thinking was still in its infancy, and the intuitive and non-logical elements in thinking dominated for a long historical period. But logical thinking is crucial for human survival and development, so it has a strong vitality; with the development of social productivity, it will inevitably become more and more consolidated. Indeed, after entering the slave-owning society, logical thinking achieved a major breakthrough, creating splendid cultures both in the West and the East. How could logical thinking be a specialty of only the "Mediterranean civilization"? Throughout the book, the material Levy-Bruhl used to argue for pre-logical thinking, except for a few chapters on language and counting, is almost what we call superstition. We know that the emergence of various religions and superstitions has its socio-economic basis. Generally speaking, it was only in the later period of primitive society that it became possible to produce religions and superstitions. This is because at that time, people had acquired a certain correct knowledge of the relationship between many natural phenomena and their production and life, but because they knew the "what" but not the "why," it was inevitable that they would deify natural forces and worship them, thus giving rise to religions and superstitions. Engels pointed out that "religion, philosophy, and so on all have their prehistoric content." These various false ideas about nature, about the essence of human beings, about souls, and about magic, etc., mostly had a negative economic basis in prehistoric times. The false ideas about nature that accompanied the low level of economic development in prehistoric times served as a supplement, but sometimes as a condition, even as a cause. It is clear that the earliest ancestors of any nation (including the "Mediterranean civilization") must have gone through a period of producing religions and superstitions, and to this day, a considerable number of people are still shrouded in the clouds of religion and superstition, and it may not be until the communist society that these negative factors can be completely overcome. Interestingly, Levy-Bruhl only developed the idea of studying the thinking of primitive people after reading the French translation of Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. He was greatly shocked by the records in Records of the Grand Historian about the direct relationship between astronomy and human affairs. Thanks to the "inspiration" from Records of the Grand Historian, Levy-Bruhl became very enthusiastic about further studying materials related to old China. He studied a massive work The Religious System of China written by a missionary, De Groot, who had been preaching in old China for a long time. Levy-Bruhl often quoted these materials at critical moments before drawing conclusions. However, he used these materials to deny the contributions of the Chinese people to the development of human civilization and to negate all of Chinese science, claiming that "all of this is just nonsense," which clearly exposed his deep-rooted racial prejudice. Regarding the material of this book. The factual part of the material seems to be all real people, and it can be said that there is indeed common ground. Levy-Bruhl's extensive collection of materials is useful for studying the development of thinking, especially the material from those backward societies (primitive tribes) is very valuable. The materials in the chapters on language and counting vividly demonstrate "concrete thinking" (i.e., thinking that does not use abstract concepts). Therefore, this book still has research value. Regarding Levy-Bruhl and his works, readers can refer to the Author's Preface to the Russian Edition and the three appendices that follow. These four articles were originally the prefaces to the Russian edition of Primitive Thinking, published together with the book in 1930. Particular attention should be paid to the Author's Preface to the Russian Edition. The very first sentence of this preface is: "'Primitive thinking' has been a very common term for some time." Here, "some time" refers to the period after Levy-Bruhl's book, The Mental Functions of Inferior Societies, was published in 1910. Obviously, this term was first used by the Soviets in the 1920s, and by 1930, when the Russian edition was published, it was used as the book's title. This was done with the prior consent of Levy-Bruhl himself. The translator has retained the title of the Russian edition this time, not only because the draft was translated from the Russian edition but also more importantly, to maintain the historical context. Additionally, in this preface, Levy-Bruhl once again clearly stated: "People translate the term 'pre-logical' as 'illogical,' not to explain that primitive thinking is illogical, that is, to deviate from any of the fundamental laws of thinking, and that it cannot recognize, judge, and reason like our thinking does." This term in French is prelogique, which could originally be translated as "pre-logical" or "pre-logical," but B. K. Nikolsky, one of the compilers of the Russian edition, believed that the prefix pre in French has a rather flexible meaning and sometimes also has the meaning of "first" or "primitive." Therefore, the Russian edition translated it as pre-logical ("primitive logic"). Levy-Bruhl also said in Chapter 2 of this book: "We use the term 'pre-logical' not to suggest that the thinking of primitive people is in some temporal stage prior to logical thinking." Therefore, he often preferred to use the term "inferior society" instead of "primitive society." Nikolsky's translation avoided taking a stance on the temporal stage and emphasized the nature of this kind of thinking. The Chinese translation adopted the Russian edition's translation of "pre-logical" from the Russian edition, in addition to maintaining the historical context, with a greater emphasis on the meaning of nature, because Levy-Bruhl was not actually studying a stage before logical thinking. The first appendix is the Editorial Note of the publisher Atheist Press. The second appendix is an untitled short article by Mal, which can be considered a preface. Mal used Levy-Bruhl's hypothesis about thinking types to argue for his own "stage theory of language development," treating Levy-Bruhl as a kindred spirit and praising him excessively. The last appendix is a long article by B. K. Nikolsky, one of the compilers of the book, titled "Pre-logical Thinking"—Levy-Bruhl's Working Hypothesis. This paper is based on Nikolsky's report made on January 31, 1930, at the Institute of Ethnology, Primitive Ideology Group (Leningrad). This report provides a detailed introduction and analysis of Levy-Bruhl himself, his works, relevant discussions, and reactions from various sides, etc. From this report, one can learn some historical context. However, Nikolsky's views are ambiguous, mainly tending to affirm Levy-Bruhl's "achievements." Finally, let's discuss the translation and layout of this book. This book was initially translated from the Russian edition. The Russian translators were B. K. Nikolsky and A. B. Kisin. They essentially used a compiling method, so on the "Copyright Page," it is written as "compiled" instead of "translated." Because it was compiled, there were inevitable deviations in some places. Additionally, the translation was relatively rough. Fortunately, later, an English edition (How Natives Think, 1926; Primitively, 1923) was found, and I went through the entire book word by word and line by line, revising it according to the English edition. Many changes were made. Therefore, the Chinese translation is actually translated from the Russian edition and then revised and finalized according to the English edition. Levy-Bruhl wrote three books on primitive thinking. The first one is the one mentioned earlier, The Mental Functions of Inferior Societies. The second book is called The Mind of Primitive People (L'ame primitive, 1922). The third book is called The Soul of Primitive People (L'ame primitive, 1927). Levy-Bruhl's entire theoretical principles were proposed in the first book, and the second and third books only supplemented the theory proposed in the first book with more material. The Russian edition of Primitive Thinking is essentially a selected collection of Levy-Bruhl's works in Russian, which includes the full translation of The Mental Functions of Inferior Societies (with some major deletions in a few places and the deletion of Section 3 of Chapter 4), as well as Chapters 1, 2, and the last chapter of the second book The Mind of Primitive People, which are translated and placed before the last chapter of The Mental Functions of Inferior Societies. In addition, the Russian compilers collected 53 illustrations for the Russian edition and supplemented some compiler's notes. After this layout, the Russian edition changed its title to Primitive Thinking (Primitivementalité, 1930). The Chinese translation adopted the layout of the Russian edition and also adopted some of the compiler's notes, supplemented the untranslated parts according to the English edition, and placed three of the four prefaces from the Russian edition as appendices at the end of the book. However, the Chinese edition adopted the more detailed table of contents from the English edition instead of the Russian edition's table of contents.