I first met Henry Aubrey almost 25 years ago when we were both participants in a seminar on growth given by Adolph Lowe at the Graduate Faculty of The New School for Social Research.
Structuralism should be studied, as we have pointed out in another paper, in terms of its embryology and its phylogenesis; but such an approach is justified only as a preliminary to specific research which alone is capable of demonstrating the positive significance of the structural method. In the present work we attempt to show how the procedure illuminates an unusual, but fruitful subject: the question of suicide in psychiatry.
A method and a puzzle, both of long-standing fascination for those schooled in the French tradition, have recently been joined with great elegance. Jean Piaget and Claude Levi-Strauss, whose prolific and ponderous works are exerting increasing influence on contemporary social society, have wielded the tools of structural analysis in an effort to dissect the human mind.
Meyer Fortes, in his 1966 Presidential address to the Royal Anthropological Institute, confessed the functionalists and structuralists “seeming to be talking past one another,” and that the matter is not being clarified by “contradictory methodological exhortations” coming from several sides. Fortes is alluding in particular to Levi-Strauss’ essay on totemism in which Levi-Strauss “dissolves” this phenomenon into elements quite foreign to the traditional interpretative schema of functionalism, and in effect disposes of the “totemic illusion” altogether.
The author examines the anthropological debate over structure and process using the arguments laid down by Leach and Gluckman. His fundamental conclusions state that: 1) "it does not appear useful for any approach to equate structure with the concept of equilibrium simply because persistence often cannot be empirically substantiated"; 2) "although conceptual predilections can produce considerable variation in the interpretations even of the same data, any conceptualization of dynamics will require an identification of certain fixed points, just as any notion of regularity will subsume certain processes or changes"; 3) "it should be recognized that analytic constructs even of process, will always distort intuitive images of social reality. But such abstraction is a crucial requirement for comparison and generalization and, hence, for the extension of scientific knowledge.
The major purpose of this paper is not to achieve a unique interpretation of Marx’s view on knowledge but to examine precisely his major statements on the subject in their development, starting with the concept of “alienation” in his early writings. The main aim is to pinpoint what he was asserting, the relations of his assertions to one another, their ambiguities, and their possible preponderance of direction in respect to the issue of empiricism versus rationalism.
Impersonality is mostly considered as a type of normatively regulated behavior. This view can be traced by Max Weber, who mentioned the impersonality of relationships as one of the defining criteria of bureaucratic organizations. The bureaucratic norm of impersonality is explained in terms of functional necessities, i.e. as a prerequisite of impartial administration. Whether this explanation is tenable or not the issue here.
All indicators show that in recent years there has been a significant rise in the occurrence of right-wing thought in Argentina. Data gathered on the publication of essays, for example, indicate that approximately 70 percent of the right-wing ideologists in Argentina have published during the last three years, while many others of the same ideological bent have seen their works re-edited for contemporary publication.
The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition
Review of book by Theodore Roszak. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1969, 268 pp.
Review of book by edited by Kurt Baier and Nicholas Resche. New York: The Free Press, 1969. 527 pp.
Review of book edited by C. P. Loomis and Z. K. Loomis. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969. 140 pp.
Review of book by Traian Herseni Busuresti, Editura Stiintifica, 1969, 200 pp.