Notes New office hours New grading policy -You must turn in your class work with your

essay in order to receive credit. Extra credit: 2% on final grade. !out the same as paper preparation" !ut not meant to take the place of paper preparation. #ylor: $.% &ethod: innovation- emphasis on what people do rather than what they think. a. Ethnography: interviews" going native !. Ethnology: 'armchair anthropology(: comparison and theori)ation a!out ethnography 2.% *efinition: 'the !elief in spiritual !eings.( +$,% -.% #heory: .ultural evolution a. #hesis: pp. /0 21 !. ll humans have the same capacities for thought and action" !ut they are developed and reali)ed in varying degrees of complexity in various cultures. c. .ultural development follows the model of *arwinian evolution +sort of%. i. ll cultures !egin as primitive savages" develop towards !ar!arism and finally to the modern" civili)ed" scientific perspective. ii. .ulture develops to make people '!etter( and 'happier( +/%. d. 2urvivals i. 3y ancestral authority +4% ii. .ustoms for which we cannot remem!er their origins +4% iii. &agical arts that allow people to cope with their world and future +5% e. nimism: #he !asic foundation of all religion from savages thru moderns +$$%. i. 2avage and !ar!arian religions have less emphasis on the moral +$$%. ii. Natural 6eligion: religion develops out of a savage" !ut nonetheless rational" response to the world. $. 7iving !odies are different from sleeping and dead !odies. 8hy9 #hey have a soul +anima% that animates them when living and slips away in sleep" sickness and death. 2. *reams and visions +including hallucinations" mirages and optical illusions" natural atmospheric and cosmic phenomena% that confirm that people have souls which are separa!le from their !odies" and which contri!ute to a sense that the natural world is animated !y personal spirits. :uestions: $.% &ust we agree that the people #ylor calls 'civili)ed( are !etter and happier than the people he calls 'savages( and '!ar!arians9( +/% 2.% *o we accept his claim that we can read 'prehistoric history( from the tendencies

we recogni)e in actually recorded history9 +/% -.% *o we accept his claim that cultures are all in process of development towards scientific culture9 a. !origines" ;N<" have ancient cultures that do not follow this trend. =t is not clear that the .hristian 8est follows this trend. 1.% *o some people alive today live in a 'pre-modern world"( or do we all live in the same modern world9 2hould we understand 'indigenous cultures( as >ra)er: $.% &ethod a. ;hilological: .ompares myths from numerous cultures 2.% *efinition: pp. /$ -.% #heory a. =nfluence of #ylor: >ra)er adopt #ylor?s evolutionary model of culture" !ut >ra)er is more specifically interested in the common rationality that underlies the various levels of culture from savage to civili)ed: people at different stages of cultural development understand differently the relationship !etween causes and effects" and what counts as causes and effects" !ut they all understand causes and effects to !e related. !. #hesis: &agic is an erroneous system !ased on a mistaken conception of the association of ideas +11" 14%. Nevertheless" magic is the !asis of the understanding of the world as causally determined" that leads to the possi!ility of scientific knowing +/,%. i. '@the magician as such is false@( +1A%. ii. &agic is gradually replaced !y religion" which is in turn replaced !y science. c. 2ympathetic magic: there is a sympathetic relationship !etween things: effecting one causes a sympathetic reaction in the other. i. 7aw of 2imilarity +e.g. voodoo dolls% +1-% ii. 7aw of .ontact B .ontagion +e.g. hair and nail clippings% +12% iii. ;ositive v. Negative magic: ;roscriptions for !enefit and ta!oos to prevent harm +11%. iv. #hese are understood !y the magician to !e non-ar!itrary 'natural laws( that govern the casual relations of things in the world +/,/$%. d. 6eligion i. &agic is not really that relia!le" and eventually people have to admit that the magical world is elastic and not governed !y hard and fast rules. #he world seems capricious and willful to the magician" o!eying her incantations only sometimes. ii. #he world is not governed !y laws" !ut !y forces that have personalities" that must !e pleased if we want them to answer our prayers +/2%. :uestions:

$.% *o we accept >ra)er?s claim that magical thinking lays the ground for scientific thinking9 *o magic and science essentially conceive of the world in the same causally determined way9