JOURNAL OF RITUAL STUDIES 23 (2) 2009 69
Catherine Bell and Her Davidsonian Critics
Curtis Hutt
University of the Holy Land/Center for the Study of Early Christianity Jerusalem
Abstract
In recent years, Catherine Bell's work on ritual has been challenged by scholars influenced by Donald David-
son. In this paper, I review some pertinent criticisms of Bell's practice-theory. While agreeing with Bell's
Davidsonian critics on several points, I argue that a modified version of her practice theory can and should
be defended.
Introduction
Catherine Bell, in a number of important and thought
provoking publications, advanced a critique of a tradition
long prevalent in religious, cultural, and specifically rit-
ual studies which gives prominence to thought over ac-
tion, ideas over the material—artifacts, practices, and the
body (Bell 1992; 1997; 1998; 2002). Her work leads read-
ers to be suspicious regarding the ascription of proposi-
tional attitudes, about how the language of thought de-
scribes "itself" using the terminology of meanings, beliefs,
and intentions. These misgivings and a "practice qua prac-
tice" approach has prompted much debate (e.g. Godlove
2002; Schilbrack 2004; Hutt 2007). In my short paper, I
shall argue in agreement with Bell that there are good rea-
sons to be distrustful of ascriptions of propositional atti-
tudes— of appeals to the "intentional." I am unwilling,
however, to rule out the usefulness of such ascription
strategies in explaining human behavior. After reviewing
Bell's project and the response of some detractors influ-
enced by Donald Davidson (including myself), I will for-
ward a proposal for a more restrained anti-intentionalism.
This program is quite similar to one that I have advanced
before in opposition to certain aspects of the use of Max
Weber's verstehende Soziologie and puts a stress, following
W.V. Quine, on the reliability of different types of evi-
dence within a holistic and self-supporting "web of be-
liefs" (Hutt 2007; 1999). While it may discourage those
seeking to ground what is "true" in correspondence to the
"real" or others who atomistically isolate the connotations
of actions and expressions made by agents, it does leave
room for pragmatic, post-representationalist verification
of ascription through theorized inquiry.
Bell's Project
Bell famously questioned in Ritual Theory, Ritual Prac-
tice and other texts the cultural method of an "earlier
generation" of scholars who optimistically viewed ritual
as an almost ideal portal through which the thinking the-
orist could access other cultures whether in the present
or the past. While participants in rituals were popularly
characterized as engaging in thoughtless activity, spe-
cialist observers were felt to possess the ability to discern
religious and cultural meanings or rationales structur-
ing ritual behavior. Ritual was conceived of as a mech-
anism whereby problems generated from contradictions
and oppositions in culture are resolved. Bell presents a
quite radical, alternative view to what she recently re-
ferred to as the "old jalopy" of the cultural method (Bell
2006, 315). Not only are practices, typically devalued in
examinations of the union between thought and action
in ritual, elevated to a position of interpretive priority.
But crucially, Bell collapses—like many contemporary
scholars, including some famous pragmatists and post-
modernists—the classical divide between thought and
action (as well as mind and body / idea and material) it-
self. Bell argued that her approach, unlike others, does
not fall victim to any "myth of fundamental contradic-
tion" (Bell 1992, 35). She censured most who have come
before her in the study of ritual (e.g., Geertz, Gluckman,
70 JOURNAL OF RITUAL STUDIES 23 (2) 2009
Turner, Bateson, Lévi-Strauss, Hegelians, Marxists, and
even Bourdieu) for not having been sufficiently reflec-
tive and unknowingly supplying themselves through the
imposition of their own selections and biases with man-
ufactured objects of study. Bell wrote: "The theoretical
construction of ritual becomes a reflection of the theo-
rist's method and the motor of a discourse in which the
concerns of the theorist take center stage" (Bell 1992,
54). Theoretical discourse about ritual, according to Bell
who cites Frederic Jameson (though one imagines she
could be borrowing from Hayden White or even Richard
Rorty), is a result of an "organizational fiction" (Bell
1992, 8).
Bell highlights the deserved centrality of ritual for tra-
ditional scholars of religious studies, at the same time as
censuring those like Clifford Geertz—a figure who she
places at the end of a long line of cultural theorists be-
ginning with W. Robertson Smith (Bell 1992, 14)—who
mistakenly distort our understanding of such activity.
Geertz, for example, views ritual activity as a prominent
"window" through which "meaningfiilness" for actors be-
comes visible (Bell 1992, 25-9). The problem with his
work, however, is not his focus upon ritual but the way
in which he constitutes what Bell refers to as the "raw
data" of ritual as an object of interpretation. Such tradi-
tional ritual theory, Bell asserts, imposes "a powerful limit
on our theoretical flexibility, our divisions of human ex-
perience, and our ability to perceive the logical relations
inscribed within these divisions" (Bell 1992, 17). Ac-
cording to Bell, Geertz—like many others before him—
thinks studying ritual is key because it is a place where
fundamental dichotomies can be investigated. This is es-
pecially clear when Geertz makes evident the predomi-
nance of religious ideas in the organization of society. In
doing so, he posited a basic distinction between "world-
view" (comprehensive ideal view—real order, cognitive,
existential) and "ethos" (dispositions, moods or motiva-
tions—moral, aesthetic, religious) with beliefs being sub-
sumed under the former and ritual under the latter. In
ritual activity, conceptions of order and dispositions for
participants are "fused." They are then "homologized"
with the theorist's project. Bell notes that for Geertz rit-
uals are not only the point of fusion of worldview and
ethos for the insider or believer, but are considered to be
the best locus for the "detached observer" to view the in-
teraction (Bell 1992, 27-8). Finally, priority is then given
by Geertz—if we are to believe Bell1—to the accounts of
these special observers or theorists who "think" while the
perspectives of insiders who simply "act" are devalued.
Bell argued that Geertz was not alone in making such
mistakes. Performance theorists like Max Gluckman and
Victor Turner, who rightly complained that most analy-
sis of ritual "presupposes a corpse" (D.H. Lawrence), also
treated ritual as an arena where social conflicts are
worked out. They too maintained the distinction that
Bell criticizes between the "thinking" researcher and the
"acting" object of research. The performance theorist
simply makes herself a member of the audience, no
longer reliant upon the recorded and stale (Bell 1992,
36). Gregory Bateson and Claude Lévi-Strauss similarly
asserted that the resolution of conflict in ritual, ulti-
mately between culture and nature, is less functional and
more symbolic. Hegelian and Marxist notions of con-
tradiction play heavily in this type of sociological theo-
rizing, also finding a fundamental contradiction—his-
torical change versus culture — at the roots of social
experience.
According to Bell, Pierre Bourdieu—at least in Out-
line of a Theory of Practice—made a mistake comparable
to that made by Lévi-Strauss. "Fundamental oppositions"
were utilized in the "internal organization of taxonomic
schemes" that generate a sense of coherent cultural unity
(Bourdieu 1977, 114-24). 2 Of course, these are not fun-
damental in any Platonic sense—absolute, metaphysical,
ontological, or logical values. For Bourdieu, these oppo-
sitions were useful tools for use with taxonomic schemes
only. Ritual causes a disruption in the taxonomic order
imposing a reordering of "culture." Ritual works out the
opposition between conflicting social orders — na-
ture/culture, old order/new order. Bell thought that even
this delimited use of fundamental oppositions or what
others might refer to as "ideal types" is suspect. She wrote:
"The notion that ritual resolves a fundamental social con-
tradiction can be seen as a type of myth legitimating the
whole apparatus of ritual studies Equally mythical,
perhaps, is the notion that there is anything fundamen-
tal." Her position is closer to Michel Foucault's whom she
quotes: "There are only reciprocal relations, and the per-
petual gaps between intentions in relation to one another"
(Bell 1992, 34).
Bell in Ritual Theory Ritual Practice likewise praised
Stanley Tambiah who reworks J.L. Austin and John Searle
describing the social conditions under which ritual is seen
as social communicative action. Tambiah's work is note-
worthy because whereas Geertz, Turner, and others found
ritual to be highly symbolic and full of metaphorical
meaning, Tambiah doubts this, rejecting "intentionality"
theories in anthropology. Bell expands on Tambiah's anti-
intentionality, deploying Jameson again — this time
against Geertz. The proclivity of social scientists to "tex-
tualize" objects of study is a mistake. Rites are not texts
though they are often treated as such because it is held
that their meanings can be "deciphered, decoded, or in-
terpreted" (Bell 1992, 44-5). An alternative to not only

cultural but also literary method in the study of ritual is
required.
Bell, citing the practice theory of Bourdieu more fa-
vorably (though in my view probably inaccurately—see
Hutt 2007, 234, 253), refuses to conduct analyses of rit-
ual as communicative at all. She writes:
Bourdieu.... avoids every semblance of literary or
verbal analysis. He eschews, for example, all use of
the terms metaphor, metonomy, and analogy in de-
scribing the operations of ritual practice. Practice
qua practice, he insists, remains on the "hither side
of discourse," and that is precisely the key to how it
does what it does. Even those rites that are just a
practical mimesis of the natural process to be facil-
itated are not at all like metaphor or analogy sim-
ply because they are not nearly as explicit. Ritual
practice as such is always much fuzzier, avoiding
the distinctive change in state that occurs when
things are brought to the level of explicit discourse
(Bell 1992, 112).
To her credit, Bell—like Bourdieu—developed a theory
of agency in which people are more than thinkers with
interests pursuing rational ends. The most important
kinds of mastery are not the product of over aggrandized
reason, but are practices implicitly learned in social set-
tings through imitation and habit. Examining the use of
propositions in ritual activities, Bell finds that even where
these occupy a crucial position such as in the "I do" in a
court of law or wedding ceremony, they "do not open a
discourse within the rite about what the ritual is doing"
(Bell 1992, 113). In fact, she explains in the longest foot-
note of Ritual Theory Ritual Practice relying upon the
work of Mark Johnson and George Lakoff, that "non-
propositional schemata" — divided into three different
structural types—produce meaning without appeal to
propositional attitudes. These preconceptual, basic-level
cognitive structures which "directly organize bodily ex-
perience and indirectly organize conceptual categories"
are visible in the taxonomic systems of cultures (Bell 1992,
113, 157-8 fn. 184). I think that a great deal depends
upon the validity of this theory of preconceptual mean-
ing and that Bell needed to further spell out and defend
her position in this regard.
In her article, "'The Chinese Believe in Spirits': Belief
and Believing in the Study of Religion," Bell is skeptical
of and agitates against the language of belief. She ar-
gued— following Donald Lopez, J.Z. Smith, and Talal
Asad—that the emphasis upon belief has arisen specifi-
cally within Western post-Reformation Christian culture
and is not portable to other contexts (Bell 2002, 101, 104;
Lopez, Jr. 1998; Smith 1998; Asad 1993, 27-54). In the
JOURNAL OF RITUAL STUDIES 23 (2) 2009 71
same way that "religion" has been critiqued as an "over-
reaching folk category that misreads and even does vio-
lence to other cultures," belief is censured. Bell does not
stop here though. By highlighting the beliefs and inner
motivations of religious practitioners, she claims that
scholars take the focus off where it should be. Causal con-
nections more readily detectable in practices are obscured
by the prominence of the conceptual. Bell's goal was to
reveal the hidden biases in the way that the language of
belief is deployed and to link this up to a particular way
of discussing religion itself.
Of particular significance for this paper, Bell in " cThe
Chinese Believe in Spirits' " resisted and critiqued a trend
in contemporary philosophy associated with Ludwig
Wittgenstein and in more recent years Donald Davidson.
In this tradition, the ability to interpret the meaning of a
belief or what someone holds to be true is still considered
indispensable in the appraisal of human behavior. What
separates Davidsonian "radical interpretation" from more
traditional interpretive practices, is that what counts as
meaningful and true is determined very differently. In
classical representationalist thought, beliefs are construed
to be meaningful or true because they correspond to ac-
tual "states of affairs." For Davidson, like Wittgenstein in
his Philosophical Investigations, however, the meaning and
truth of beliefs is established inferentially relative to one's
other beliefs in specific linguistic contexts. Just as the
meaning of a sentence hinges upon the meanings of other
sentences in its language, the accurate ascription of propo-
sitional attitudes like beliefs to actors—the goal of David-
sonian "radical interpretation"—depends upon the rela-
tion of beliefs to a greater web of generally reliable,
connected beliefs. In " cThe Chinese Believe in Spirits',"
Bell might have emphasized at least a couple of impor-
tant similarities between her own work and that of David-
son. For instance, both Bell and Davidson made similar
criticisms of earlier theories of meaning. More interest-
ingly, Davidson's undermining of the scheme/content du-
alism (where thought is traditionally described as being
composed of two distinct parts—a conceptual framework
supplied by mind and preconceptual objective content)
also effectively collapses the divide Bell attacks between
thought and action. Instead, Bell takes direct aim at David-
son's claim—extended by Richard Shweder—that it is
impossible to make sense of a person's words without hav-
ing extensive and accurate knowledge of their intentions
and what they believe to be true (Bell 2002, 102, 106).
Bell likewise disagrees with Davidson's famous prin-
ciple of charity. Bell refuses to assume, like Davidson,
that people have mostly true beliefs about the world and
that even where people disagree they must minimally
share much more in common in order to be able to ree-
72 JOURNAL OF RITUAL STUDIES 23 (2) 2009
ognize their differences. According to Davidson, differ-
ence can only be linguistically articulated in a system
where broad agreement is the rule rather than the ex-
ception. Bell has two objections. First, Davidson's prin-
ciple of charity presents a danger to contemporary "post-
theological" adherence to cultural relativism. The
different, aberrant, and idiosyncratic are fundamentally
downplayed by Davidsonian radical interpreters and this
is unacceptable (Bell 2002, 107-9). Second, as noted
above in reference to Ritual Theory Ritual Practice, Bell
refuses to "push analysis to the level of the sentence" (Bell
2002, 102). Any methodological approach that does so,
such as is found in the work of Wittgenstein or David-
son, is far too concentrated on linguistic "meaning" to be
of much use to practice theorists.
Recent Criticisms of Bell's Practice Theory
The response of scholars influenced by Davidson to
Catherine Bell's article " 'The Chinese Believe in Spir-
its' "—published in full-view of Davidsonians studying
religion in Nancy Frankenberry's volume of collected es-
says titled Radical Interpretation in Religion—was pre-
dictable. As evidenced in the work of Terry Godlove,
who critiqued Bell's earlier work in the article "Saving
Belief: On the New Materialism in Religious Studies"
contained in Frankenberry's collection as well, Bell's
skepticism towards the ascription of propositional atti-
tudes and a supposedly narrow, uninclusive practice the-
ory are targeted. Others, presumably following Wittgen-
stein, could likewise have been expected to be critical of
her unwillingness to restrict meaning to linguistic con-
texts. My take is, however, somewhat different from
Bell's critics like fellow Davidsonian Terry Godlove, oth-
ers influenced by Davidson like Kevin Schilbrack, and
probably a good number of self proclaimed Wittgen-
steinians. While agreeing with Bell's opponents on sev-
eral counts, I still think that she was correct to insist
upon giving priority to practices over meanings —
whether linguistic, intended, or cultural — in the ex-
planation of human behavior.
Terry Godlove does praise Bell's targeting of the onesid-
edness in earlier studies of ritual that value ideas and the
mental over actions and materiality. Admittedly, Godlove's
objections to Bell's "materialism" are muted compared to
his scathing critique of Donald Lopez, Jr.'s entry "Belief "
in the Mark C. Taylor volume titled Critical Terms for Re-
ligious Studies (Lopez, Jr. 1998). Part of the reason for
this is Godlove's stated inability to pin down what Bell
has to say on belief. On the one hand, he notes that Bell
claims to have "nothing against belief per se" (Godlove
2002, 18). This is clearly evidenced, I would add, by the
fact that she did not shy away from writing about belief.
What matters though is how inquiry into beliefs, inten-
tions, and meanings is implemented. Bell positively main-
tained, following the work of anthropologists like James
W. Fernandez and Jack Goody, that it is possible to em-
pirically test the motivations and associations of people
engaged in ritual practices (Bell 1992, 183, 186; Fernan-
dez 1965; Goody 1977). More critically, Godlove em-
phasizes the fact that Bell refuses to ever grant priority or
even relevance to beliefs motivating ritual practices for
methodological reasons. According to Bell, who draws
upon a great deal of evidence not cited by Godlove, par-
ticipants engaged in the same ritual activity often have
different, confused, or even no beliefs about what it is
that they are doing. There is thus no reason to assume
that ritual acts are transparent, effortlessly divulging sin-
gular meanings. Godlove rightly associates Bell's view of
the process of "ritualization" with the work of Barbara
Myerhoff. Ritualization is able to produce meaning out
of "raw happenings" or the "movements of the body in
space and time" without recourse to the intentions of the
actors involved (Godlove 2002, 18; Bell 1998, 212, 216).3
The attaining of ritual mastery by participants does not
require any significant knowledge of the meaning of
learned behavior. Instead, as rituals are performed diverse
predilections and habits become inscribed upon individ-
ual bodies. Thereby, the activities of the "socialized" are
molded by communities and their dominant preferences.
Godlove simply thinks that students of religion should
attend to both what he labels, also somewhat vaguely,
non-discursive and discursive meanings alike. While I
agree with Godlove on several critical points including
the need to attend both to material culture and proposi-
tional attitudes, I think modifying Godlove with Bell nec-
essary. More attention, even priority, needs to be paid to
the structures underlying and producing so-called "non-
discursive" meanings when determining why people do
the things that they do. As attested to by that ancient rule
of thumb, in the evaluation of human behavior, actions
count more than intentions.
Kevin Schilbrack, in his article "Ritual Metaphysics,"
adds one more important criticism of Bell's work that
at first glance appears to sit well with Godlove's argu-
ment above. Bell in Ritual Theory Ritual Practice de-
scribed ritualization as a process of writing upon one's
body and practices schemes put in place by the ascen-
dant social order understood inevitably—though not
unproblematically—as the "true" nature of reality. This
is not done via overt coercion, but instead following An-
tonio Gramsci, Bell thought that such "dominance and
subordination ... exist within people's practical and un-
self-conscious awareness of the world" (Bell 1992, 83).

Ritualization is, therefore, best understood in terms of
learned mastery and empowerment—a process detailed
by Bell in her discussion of "redemptive hegemony."
Schilbrack's problem is that Bell, like Bourdieu and ap-
parently Peter Berger, refused to assume that what is rit-
ualized is a reflection of any substantive actual state of
affairs or "truth." Schilbrack quotes Bell: "Of course the
redemptive hegemony of practice does not reflect real-
ity more or less effectively; it creates it more or less ef-
fectively" (Bell 1992, 85). Ritualization simply begins
with the establishing of any ritual order. Subsequently,
this order is "objectified" so that agents will not view it
as manufactured but instead as real or true. Those agents
engaged in ritual behavior are described as taking part
in a grand misrecognition of an arbitrary world
(Schilbrack 2004, 84-5). Schilbrack finds Bell at this
point to be unreasonably committed to an a priori hy-
pothesis that is implicitly Kantian. He writes: "One need
not deny that ritual metaphysics are the product of the
human imagination and reflect the linguistic and cul-
tural context from which they are projected; from the
fact that metaphysical knowledge involves imaginative
projection it does not follow that all understandings of
reality are necessarily false." Bell reassures us in the
Frankenberry volume that this is her position. Bell as-
serts in 'The Chinese Believe in Spirits' " that by con-
necting up belief, intentions, and meaning with the real
or the true, the "post-theological" stress upon the co-
gency of a plurality of world-views is unacceptably called
into question (Bell 2002, 102). Bell consistently defends
a strong version of cultural relativism which
Schilbrack—at least in part influenced by Davidson —
rejects.
Between Bell and Davidson
I have outlined the assumptions of Bell's critics that
underlie four main points of disagreement with her work.
I will conclude by addressing the first and most impor-
tant of these—namely, Bell on the ascription of propo-
sitional attitudes to ritual actors. I will begin by adding a
few cursory comments about the final three. Generally,
in spite of agreeing with Godlove, Schilbrack, and imag-
ined Davidsonian and Wittgensteinian detractors on a
number of counts, I am more sympathetic to some of
Bell's main positions. I definitely think that Bell was right
to challenge the extremely influential rhetoric of belief
that all too often obscures precisely what practice theo-
rists want to bring into relief. Ritual practices are not of
secondary importance when it comes to understanding
how humans and human culture work—whether con-
ceived of as hollow, insignificant movements (just going
JOURNAL OF RITUAL STUDIES 23 (2) 2009 73
through the motions) or as mere windows through which
more significant cultural meanings are made visible. Such
practices may be utilized instead in a wide variety of ways,
of which primary actors are not necessarily aware. In sum-
mary, the assumptions of Bell's critics underlying theo-
retical disagreements include:
1. Misgivings forwarded regarding Bell's skepticism
of the ascription of propositional attitudes.
2. Disapproval of Bell's cultural relativism.
3. Objections to her reluctance to restrict meaning to
linguistic contexts.
4. Criticism of her presumably one-sided practice
theory.
Starting with number four and working backwards,
I agree with Schilbrack that Bell's ultimate refusal to
characterize the truth claims of a given culture as any-
thing but arbitrary or manufactured is problematic. On
the other hand, I do think that Bell's rejection of David-
son's principle of charity in the Frankenberry volume is
provocative. It is easy to see how some influenced by
Davidson might take the softening of linguistic and cul-
tural differences to an extreme on the basis of their com-
mitment to the dictum: diversity only within the con-
text of shared belief. Just how far though can such
charity take you? Are remaining differences less stark?
Is the inability to communicate (Babel) overcome — or,
at least in principle, overcome-able? Notably, Terry
Godlove is not optimistic in these regards. He has em-
phasized the need to account for an exceptional variety
of beliefs while at the same time rejecting relativism by
sidestepping the Kantian "framework model"—which
rests upon the discredited view that knowledge results
from a transaction between "organizing scheme and neu-
tral content" (Godlove 1997, 4). While agreeing with
Davidson that difference can only be posited within the
context of shared beliefs, I, like Godlove, think that dif-
ferences can be substantive — stymieing not only un-
derstanding but basic recognition as well. An alterna-
tive way of construing Davidsonian charity, consistent
I believe with Davidson's own writing such as found in
his response to Andrew Cutrofello's article on "The Tran-
scendental Pretensions of the Principle of Charity," is
that it assumes the existence of only enough agreement
to enable us to make sense of our disagreements—but
not necessarily any more! There is much that people
know that others don't, and Davidson understood that
his theory of charity must take this into account (David-
son 1999, 342-3). Radical interpreters, while acknowl-
edging that differences can only be posited within the
context of shared beliefs, should be open to diversity
and the anomalous in a way that separates them from
74 JOURNAL OF RITUAL STUDIES 23 (2) 2009
earlier generations of comparativists who too often sti-
fled or ignored significant cultural differences.
Most startling to readers in the tradition of Wittgen-
stein and Davidson are Bell's comments in " 'The Chi-
nese Believe in Spirits' " and Ritual Theory Ritual Prac-
tice challenging the usefulness of reducing meaning to
the sentential and her emphasis upon the role played by
non-propositional, preconceptual schemata in the pro-
duction of meaning. Bell is certainly confusing on these
two points. Acknowledging that Bell has not always ad-
equately distinguished between "cognitive" and "linguis-
tic" meaning, the focus of her work is clearly on non-
cognitive structures and non-linguistic practices
underlying the output of "meaning." What Bell meant by
non-cognitive and non-linguistic "meaning"—which
shows up in "bodily movements in space and time" —
also needs to be delineated. For example, it sometimes
looks as if Bell wished to connect the work of philoso-
phers of mind with Bourdieu's focus on imitation and
habit. For Bourdieu, however, human behavior is so-
cially generated and is not addressed as a byproduct of
cognitive structures at all. For the purpose of clarity, not
only should separate vocabularies for the "cognitive" and
"linguistic" be adopted and adhered to, but new termi-
nology for non-cognitive/non-linguistic "meaning as well.
Finally, in defense of Bell's tactic of privileging practices
over beliefs in the explanation of human behavior, I
would invoke the work of the pragmatist John Dewey for
whom "beliefs" were best labeled "habits of action."
Dewey, like Bell, viewed beliefs to be practices and em-
phasized the importance of evaluating propositional at-
titudes through theorized inquiry. Going further than
Bell, Dewey—as noted by Schilbrack—recognized the
role played by non-cognitive/non-linguistic influences
like "biological functions and structures" on people's in-
teraction with the world (Schilbrack 2004, 86). Dewey
like Godlove, however, more insightfully maintained the
pertinence of beliefs and commitments to special quests
and values which Bell ignores. Religious beliefs may have
what Godlove calls an "interpretive priority" for believ-
ers—though these are always formed in local social, ma-
terial contexts.
Any reproof of practice theory, whether as forwarded
by Bell or Bourdieu, which does not begin by acknowl-
edging the thesis of J.L. Austin and John Searle that all
speech is first and foremost activity is not deserving of
serious consideration. This stated, it is clear that Bell,
while perhaps having nothing against limited inquiries
into the motivating significance of beliefs and intentions,
plainly spent the vast majority of her time looking else-
where for the production of meaning. Bell's decision to
pay very limited attention to the "truths" of coherence
that guide action, expectations, and even perception is
disappointing. Bell's apparent common ground with
Davidsonians does leave her overall project open to rééval-
uation and possible reproach. Because radical interpreters
have continued to emphasize an important foundational
role for belief while patently not succumbing to criticisms
Bell made of others who adopted the thought/action du-
alism, Bell's strategy of downplaying linguistic in addi-
tion to cultural meaning in the study of ritual as the only
option to move forward in ritual studies is called into
question.
Conclusion: On the Ascription of
Propositional Attitudes
As noted in the opening paragraph, some years ago I
made an attempt to outline a methodology for use by his-
torians in evaluating the ascription of propositional atti-
tudes in ancient literary sources - specifically, as related
to the identity of the communities responsible for the
scrolls found at Khirbet Qumran (Hutt 1999). While the
strategy outlined was fine-tuned to meet special require-
ments, its general features are applicable to a variety of
research programs including those concerned with the
near present and not the distant past. Crucial to this proj-
ect was the assigning of weights based upon verifiability
and the integration of different types of evidence.4 Ap-
peals to intentions, while not entirely dismissed, were
downgraded and ordered relative to data confirmed
through inquiry. In conclusion, I am going to not only
compare my proposal—now slightly revised in light of
learned suggestions—to that made by Catherine Bell but
also to those of her critics.
I will begin by stating that in spite of Bell's claim made
in " 'The Chinese Believe in Spirits' " that sometimes but
by no means most of the time belief acts as instigator of
action, she is definitely suspicious of the ascription of
propositional attitudes (Bell 2002, 107). In this regard,
there is much substantive agreement between Bell and
me. It is not merely the fact that appeals to human in-
tentions and beliefs of ancient writers are extraordinar-
ily difficult to evaluate. This is the case, though of course
to a much lesser degree, with pinning down the beliefs,
intentions, and meanings of even those individuals with
whom we are intimately familiar. Recalling Geertz' fa-
mous distinction, it is difficult to distinguish between a
"twitch" and a "wink" except in familiar settings. Even
then, one might miss something if caught off guard. On
the other hand, while epistemically speaking these as-
criptions stand upon shaky foundations as they are not
grounded in a direct awareness or correspondence to the
facts of the matter, they are not formed arbitrarily. We

do manage, sometimes more easily than others, to as-
certain with relative certainty "what" people have done
and the motivations behind their actions. This, as
Wittgenstein has shown so well, depends upon seeing
what the "lever" is attached to (Wittgenstein 1968, §6).
Intentions only become apparent against specific back-
drops. Surmising the "truth" of someone's intentions,
moreover, invariably depends upon the consistency of
our own beliefs.
There is another sort of claim to truth which, while
never encountered disassociated from a web of self-sup-
porting and mostly consistent beliefs, depends upon
active, theorized inquiry for its special character. Re-
sults derived from the testing of hypotheses—through
the use of procedures that are public and repeatable —
have (and certainly deserve) core status in our webs of
belief. To once again deploy the terminology and ar-
guments of John Dewey in defense of Bell, only beliefs
that have been examined are worthy of the warrant "jus-
tified." Certainly many very influential core habits of
belief and other practices are seldom brought to light,
much less questioned. To dismiss them as irrelevant all
too often renders their occasionally harmful effects —
for example, in the reproduction of social disparities—
invisible and free to function undeterred. We might pre-
sume that such core beliefs are generally reliable. How-
ever, the inquiring mind must acknowledge that this
remains to be established. Such beliefs, as seen in the
work of Bell above, can be sought out and tested. Es-
pecially when they have been theorized as habits and
practices! Sometimes it is only feasible to inquire into
the consistency and coherence of our beliefs, to selec-
tively alter variables, and see if the proposed change
makes better sense than what has come before it. His-
torians of the ancient world are unfortunately often left
to such means, unable to plan out or implement fur-
ther useful investigation.
My suggestion is simple, namely, that we grant prece-
dence to our beliefs about the world that have accrued as
the result of inquiry—whether in regard to neural activ-
Endnotes
1. This is Bell's view of Geertz's work and not my own. I choose
to read Geertz as stressing the importance of native or insider per-
spectives. As Geertz wrote, anthropologists shouldn't "study vil-
lages" but instead "study in villages" (Geertz 1973, 22).
2. Keep in mind that Bell criticized a part of Bourdieu's work
that he himself questioned on numerous occasions (Hutt 2007,
246). Bourdieu moved away from such structuralist analyses in
later publications.
JOURNAL OF RITUAL STUDIES 23 (2) 2009 75
ity, ritualized practices, or other people's beliefs. Occu-
pying the central position in a Quinean web of beliefs,
where beliefs do not change piecemeal but always in con-
junction with other beliefs, are inner core commitments
of which people are generally certain. Our trust in the
usefulness and reliability of empirical inquiry is one of
these commitments. As one moves out of the core to-
wards the periphery, things become more malleable. They
must be consistent with the inner or an occasion for de-
fensive compartmentalization or, optimally, problem-
solving inquiry arises. The less secure outer rings of be-
lief are, except in very unusual circumstances, obliged to
conform to the inner and not vice versa (Quine 1978).
The ascription of propositional attitudes, and generally
more traditional literary approaches to interpretation,
should be—where possible—tested and judged relative
to what is empirically verifiable. Where not possible, our
understandings of specific beliefs are more tenuous and
subject to revision.
The practice theory of Bell, Bourdieu, and others is
intriguing from my perspective—influenced by Dewey,
Quine, and Davidson as well! It encourages investiga-
tors to give an interpretive priority to practices over as-
cribed propositional attitudes in the explanation of
human behavior. Bridging the thought/action dualism
and emphasizing practices first, however, should lead
us onto some middle ground. Practice theorists like Bell,
in my view, have needlessly prompted a backlash from
Davidsonians and others by at least giving the appear-
ance that they disregard the intentions that animate so
much human behavior. Meanings, beliefs, and inten-
tions may be difficult to identify, but without such pos-
tulated referents human behavior is often completely in-
explicable. Likewise, Godlove and Schilbrack's call for
an unqualified double approach focusing upon the non-
discursive and discursive also requires revision — this
time in the direction of Bell. Appeal to intentions al-
ways needs to be measured against data gained by the
most reliable means possible.
3. This claim by Bell is extremely suspicious to theorists in prag-
matic and other post-representationalist traditions who maintain
that humans never have access to "raw" data or happenings.
4. Following Dewey and Davidson, I think that differences of
type or kind are really nothing more than differences of degree.
76 JOURNAL OF RITUAL STUDIES 23 (2) 2009
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 ^ s
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