Thinking about relations: Strathern, Sahlins, and Locke on anthropological knowledge

Abstract

John Locke is known within anthropology primarily for his empiricism, his views of natural laws, and his discussion of the state of nature and the social contract. Marilyn Strathern and Marshall Sahlins, however, have offered distinctive, novel, and broad reflections on the nature of anthropological knowledge that appeal explicitly to a lesser-known aspect of Locke's work: his metaphysical views of relations. This paper examines their distinctive conclusions -Sahlins' about cultural relativism, Strathern's about relatives and kinship -both of which concern the objectivity of anthropological knowledge. Although Locke's own views of relations have been neglected by historians of philosophy in the past, recent and ongoing philosophical discussions of Locke on relations create a productive trading zone between philosophy and anthropology on the objectivity of anthropological knowledge that goes beyond engagement with the particular claims made by Sahlins and Strathern.

Kinship Past, Kinship Present: Bio-Essentialism in the Study of Kinship

“…In the standard narrative, recall, the study of kinship did not dissolve after Schneider but was self‐consciously transformed, invoking a more pluralistic conception of kinship as “relatedness” (see also Wilson ). Kinship so conceived could be studied both in Western domestic places and spaces as well as cross‐culturally (e.g., Carsten ; Faubion ), once the bio‐essentialism of the past was given up.…”

Divergences and crossovers: Response to Robert Wilson’s ‘Thinking about relations’

“…The world Wilson seems to be assuming as the background to diverse anthropological efforts – including those of many anthropologists who would proceed from the same assumptions – is comprehended through what I would call ‘science’s relation’. This phrase refers not so much to general ‘relations such as knowing, conceiving, and thinking’ (Wilson, 2016: [338]) 1 as to a particular relationship pertinent to relational knowledge-makers, that between a world to be discovered (uncovering existing connections) and a world to be invented (relating hitherto unconnected facts). There are numerous permutations to the terms of this relationship, including nature and culture so-called, and objective and subjective orientations.…”

“…As he explains, one can use relations as an instrument of explication or knowledge-making (and relational knowledge may in this regard be objective), but these belong to ‘knowledge claims’: the non-relational fact is there for all to see. ‘Consider’, he says, ‘a simple, physical relation’ (Wilson, 2016: [10]). As a pair of examples he refers both to Niska’s height and to Niska’s motherhood.…”

“…On first reading I did not understand the formulation that the weathervane indicated ‘a transition whereby the epistemic (“science’s relation”) became the interpersonal (“anthropology’s relation”)’ (Wilson, 2016: [339]). I thought I was saying that, independently of the Enlightenment project in which anthropology was also swept up, there was a long tradition of linguistic crossover in the way in which English-speakers spoke about conceptual (logical, epistemic) and interpersonal relations.…”

“…Those of the ‘face value view’ assume relations ‘actually exist between two or more substances’, being metaphysically required by the evident truth of the way certain substances are connected to one another. For others, including Locke, since ‘what relations hold between any two things is simply a matter of what comparisons we can draw’ (Wilson, 2016: [330]), relations are mental constructs, a ‘subjectivist’ or nominalist (anti-realist) view. However, Wilson has no sooner suggested that Locke occupies this second position than he points out ambiguities in Locke’s usage of the term (relations).…”