BOOK REVIEWS

FUNCTION, PURPOSE AND POWERS, by Dorothy Emmet, second edition, Macmillan, London, 1972, 300 pp., s The first thing one wonders about while reading Professor Emmet's book is the intended audience: is it addressed to social scientists (sociologists and anthropologists in particular), to philosophers of the social sciences who happen to be interested in ethics, or just laymen? Whoever is the intended reader, further questions are raised while reading the book, as well as some objections on matters of principle. Emmet seems to believe she is following A.N. Whitehead in maintaining that a philosopher has two interrelated tasks: I) To try to "harmonize abstractions;" 2) to show and to stress the "'limits" of the "abstractions" - or the conceptual schemes - which serve the different sciences. (Those "abstractions" put in relief some aspects of phenomena in the domain to which they apply while imposing others, not less worthy for scientific investigation). But what Emmet actually does is not in accord with Whitehead's music: she does not "harmonize abstractions," she rather "harmonizes terms." I believe Whitehead would have agreed that this kind of "harmonization" is both discordant with his tune and misleading. Further, instead of showing the "limits" of "abstractions" (i.e., instead of clarifying what these "abstractions" are) Emmet advises anthropologists not to ignore some aspects of phenomena in which she is personally interested. Her legitimate idea is proposed as though the anthropologist has no right to put aside the proposal, recognizing those aspects as being of interest to some people and considering them irrelevant to the question he chose to deal with. Whitehead never said that the philosopher's task was to recommend subjects worthy of scientific investigation; nor did he believe that 831

BOOK REVIEW any scientific research was possible without preliminary "negative prehension" of facets irrelevant to the problem dealt with. The philosopher should not try to do away with "abstractions," nor to push beyond their limits. His task is to show, when that is the case, that dealing within the "limits" of an "abstraction" with problems which were considered irrelevant when this very "abstraction" was first formed involves conceptual inconsistency. Whitehead's own analyses clearly prove that the "abstractions" or "conceptual schemes," he thought the philosopher should refer to are those underlying scientific theories. These "conceptual schemes" are ostensibly different from what scientists say, when they are in a philosophical mood, about their theories. Whitehead talked about the scientists' "unconscious metaphysics." Emmet deals with what social scientists sometimes refer to as "methodology" or "general theory;" i.e., with their declarations. These declarations can, at best, be reread as plans for research. I believe a philosopher should be concerned with the plans actually revealed in research, and not only with the declared, and often only apparently realized plans. Emmet's misunderstanding of the task of "criticizing abstractions" is interrelated to her misunderstanding of the task of "harmonizing abstractions." Whitehead spoke metaphorically of "abstractions" underlying scientific theories as "partial dictionaries." Emmet is wrong both in taking the metaphor literally and in holding that the philosopher should propose a kind of "comprehensive though not 'complete' - dictionary" which will include and interrelate the "partial" ones. But by naming Emmet's work an attempt at "harmonizing terms" I do not accuse her of misunderstanding Whitehead, but of undertaking a useless, and in a sense, harmful task. The social sciences, at least from the terminological point of view, are parasitic: they are borrowing terms from the natural sciences. 'Power,' 'equilibrium,' etc. are borrowed from the jargon of classical mechanics; 'field' is borrowed from that of modern physics, 'function' and 'structure' from the biologist's jargon. It is fashionable nowadays to inquire into the extent that metaphors borrowed from a given domain of research influence conclusions of research in the borrowing domain. However, borrowing of terms is not borrowing of metaphors. Emmet seems to take it for granted that social scientists (those who include borrowed terms in their professional jargon and pledge to proceed in the methods of physics, biology, or any other domain from which the terms are borrowed) actually understand the role of the terms in 832

BOOK REVIEW the lending domain, and therefore are capable of using them metaphoricaUy. This assumption is not obvious, it is often false. Emmet should have considered the different senses in which the same words or phrases are used in the language of a given natural science and the many, diversified jargons of social scientists. Instead, she proposes a "harmonization" of terminology, done with the help of Aristotelian language. It is somewhat surprising to hear this kind of discordant music played in a British auditorium. It can distract and mislead the anthropologist (the one who tends to take seriously what the philosopher says); it can confuse the layman (the anthropologist is often aware of the fact that he and his colleague do not use the same words in the same sense). But, these outcomes notwithstanding, "harmonization" is a paradigmatic case of the fallacy Whitehead named the "Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness." In fact one might conclude from what Emmet says that there is something which really is, say function (and that therefore the word 'function' designates it "rightly"); the only problem being that scientists who use the term 'function' do not always understand the true nature of that something. Is not this kind of essentialism surprising? Well, it probably does not surprise a person who believes there is a spiritual state of "holiness," of "being blessed," or of "departure of Glory" to which the Christian idea of Grace (and in Greek: "Charis") is referred; and who believes that when the "Ancient Hebrew" used the ancient Hebrew expressions 'kodesh,' 'barukh,' 'yitbarkhu bo,' 'ashrei,' or 'gala kabhod' he was actually expressing the opinions of those who believe in the resurrected God, even though those who spoke his language, the other "Ancient Hebrews" understood him to speak about magical, half corporeal qualities and powers of objects and of blessing-and-cursing persons. It probably does not surprise a person who believes the Greeks had forged the term 'charis' only in order to provide Christianity a term to designate with matters of Grace, and therefore Max Weber, while dealing with the "charismatic," referred only to inferior and distorted aspects of "chaffs," not to its elevated and sublime form. (Weber had derived from the Greek the terms 'charismatic' and 'charisma' in order to characterize a certain social phenomenon; people following somebody who influences them with the power of his personality rather than with the logical power of what he says.) The more "sublime" form of "charis" Emmet is talking about is when understanding people change their old ways to the better, being influenced by "a person bestowed with spiritual power. And Emmet seems to believe in all that. 833

BOOK REVIEW She does not let Weber express his own opinion (quite incompatible with Emmet's convictions) concerning the effectivity of persons bestowed as she would say with "charis," and the way their sayings and deeds influenced their followers. Nor does Emmet let the linguist who inquires of Biblical Hebrew (or Hebrews) express his opinion about the assumption that 'kodesh" should always be translated by "holiness," that 'mishkan kebhodo' is rightly translated by 'the dwelling place of his Glory' (as if He Himself resides somewhere else). Emmet does not allow anybody the chance to criticize the rationality of the belief that in order to understand the status blessing, etc. had among the ancient Hebrews one has to refer to the English term 'blessed,' by which both Hebrew terms 'baruch' and 'ashrei' were indiscriminately translated. It is remarkable how Emmet, while dealing with these matters avoids consulting the linguist who inquires into the Hebrew language and is ready to cite works of Christian erudites, who know to explain, in the oldfashioned manner, that the Hebrew language has its "particularities." That is, "Ancient Hebrew's" grammatical anomalies may lead people to see as a promise-sentence what "really" is not a promise, and to hear as a description of a present state what is "actually" a revelation of the future. This supposed confusion results, we are asked to believe, from the fact that there are no proper tenses in Hebrew, except for a distinction between "perfect" and "imperfect." Briefly, we are asked to believe in an out-of-date idea which could be conceived only by people imprisoned in the grammar of their own language, unable to even imagine the possibility of alternative grammatical solutions to the problem of describing the temporal relations of events to each other and to the event of talking about them. As Emmet refers in her book to anthropologists it seems highly relevant to express here the hope that when they deal with the languages of the communities under investigation they take more caution before they draw conclusions about people being strange and having a "particular nature." Emmet's statements concerning the language of the Hebrews (a language she does not know) are less ridiculous than her statements concerning their beliefs and society. The linguistic side should, however, be stressed here, as some philosophers inspired by Wittgensteinian ideas are of the opinion that understanding foreign cultures or foreign "life-forms" involves the understanding of the "grammars" of their languages. It rarely occurs to those philosophers that the 834

BOOK REVIEW great misunderstandings do not always begin with the particularities of the other language's grammar, but rather with the errors of the translator who substitutes known words for foreign words, one for one, but chains "faithfully" the known words according to the synthetic rules of the foreign language. This happens quite often when philosophical texts are translated from one European language into another. It would be encouraging to know that anthropologists are less "faithful" in this sense, and that therefore their translations are more reliable. 'Power' in Emmet's vernacular has a sense cognate to 'charis;' a sort of personal "vocation" or "calling." Emmet tries to secularize this religious category by mentioning the case of Florence Nightengale and Albert Schweizer as paradigmatic. Bergson's thesis of "the two kinds of Moralities" is mentioned while this "internal, spiritual power" is evoked, as Emmet believes it will help in clarifying her two recommendations to the social scientist: First, to remember that the individual does not always play the "institutional role" in which the social scientist is interested, and not to ignore his "uninstitutionalized" actions. Secondly, not to ignore the truth that the "role," as an "institution," has a social function. I do not quite understand why social scientists should deal with "spiritual powers" of persons. Nor do I see the need to remind them that not all actions can be classified under the sociological rubrics of "role" and "function." One could do better to remind those scientists what they tend to forget. Emmet seems to believe, rather naively, that there is no ambiguity in the sociologists' and anthropologists' uses of 'function.' As to 'role,' she seems to believe, like many others, that the sociologist uses it to talk about a sort of theatrical matter, as the term itself is borrowed from the jargon of actors. For instance, Emmet thinks it is important to remind social scientists that improvisations sometimes render the show very different from the one dictated by the written play. These may be improvisations of forgetful neurotic actors, but they may also be improvisations of gifted "blessed" ones. In a Bergsonian mood Emmet identifies the "blessed" changeinducers with prophets and Saints (in the Christian sense). I must confess my ignorance; I have never heard of any convincing case in which a pacifistic Saint induced a real social change by virtue of his, or her, spiritual power. Emmet mentions St. Theresa of Avila; I believe that even the much more influential St. Francis of Assisi had not converted the world, but only established another monastic order (while he himself was soon converted into a mythical being 835

BOOK REVIEW and became influential - as a symbol). The same doubts apply to prophets; i.e., if those followed by "sons-of-prophets" and those, who like Shemuel (Samuel) were not only prophets but also "judges," and qausi-priests performing ritual services are excluded, there is no evidence in the Bible of any social changes (or of any change in moral conceptions) brought about by prophets in their own time and place, or by the power of their personalities. Even Moshe (Moses) cannot be considered as an exception; a political leader, and not only a "prophet," even he lacked what Weber would consider as a real "charisma:" significantly enough the Scriptures tel mostly about his failures in his repeated attempts to revolutionize his followers "institutionalized" beliefs and customs. Some consider Moshe to be the greatest of prophets, and his life story to symbolize the fate of the true noncomformist (the noncompromiser who tries to induce a social change.) But according to Bergson's and Emmet's mythological history, Moshe should not be taken for a "true" prophet, as already St. Paul (whose teaching both philosophers seem to follow) had described him as the one who preferred the "Law" and the Bergsonian "closed Morality" to any "Generosity of the Heart" and "Open Morality." I do not intend presently to praise Moshe, nor to suggest that St. Paul was not an honorable man, but I think it is time to bury the idea of the morality of the "Open Morality." Following Bergson Emmet opposes "Closed Morality" to "Open Morality," the former being a sort of behaviour according to accepted and institutionalized norms which regulate social interrelations according to the principle of reciprocity, and the latter being a sort of "love" for any human being as such. Also in a Bergsonian manner, Emmet associates the first to a "static" or "institutionalized" religion, and the second to a "dynamic" or "evolving" religion. This dichotomy expresses, of course, a known ideology (Christian even in its secularized versions) rather than characterizes any given historical situation or event. I do believe anthropology and sociology should investigate myths and ideologies, but those of Bergson and Emmet (inter alia) can be relevant to this kind of investigation only as representative of "institutionalized" depth-myth, as it were, not as a regulative principle. I believe philosophers should examine their rationality, though Emmet does not bother to remind her reader that the question of whether morality can be thought of without referring to any rules, but only to the "directive of generous heart," is one of the main issues of the philosophy of Morals. Moreover, she does not notice the conceptual confusion involved in the inability to distinguish 836

BOOK REVIEW behaviour according to social rules, religious imperatives, and political laws from behaviour which is judged to be morally good. Shemuel did not dethrone King Shaul (Saul) who felt pity for the captive king Agag (and Emmet answers in the affirmative to the proverbial question: "Is Saul a prophet?") because Shaul's "Open Morality" was incompatible with the "Closed Morality" of the "Ancient Hebrews." (Biblical imperatives concerning exclusively Amaleg, Agad's tribe, are beyond any morality. Biblical stories about it are still waiting for an explanation as to its symbolic role.) Emmet's statement that "Closed Morality" is regulated by the principle of reciprocity, and therefore has a limited application while the "Open Morality" involves an unconditional and unlimited love, is a statement one has to work hard in attempting to clarify; one has to work twice as hard in order to render it convincing, Emmet does not work at all in this direction, maybe because it does not occur to her that even a person who is not bestowed with any particular "spiritual power" is able to acknowledge that obeying some rules prevailing in his social group (for instance, rules which discriminate against "outsiders"), is not always (though it can be) compatible with moral norms (concerning attitude and behaviour towards any human being as such which prevail in the same group). Nor does it occur to her that any person is able to recognize these kinds of incompatibilities in any society, in any epoch. Quite consistently she believes there was something new in the Christians' famous answer: "Any man you meet on your way," to the question "Who is my neighbour?" She of course ignores the fact that the responsibility for the "Authorized Version" (of the Bible) - which means, by the way, "institutionalized," not "true" - quite wrongly rendered 're'akha' by 'thy neighbour.' (The "Ancient Hebrew" did not talk about a close friend one has to love "as one loves oneself." The Old Hebrew expressions, 'ish le're'o' or 'ish le'ahiv' are rendered by the neutral English expression 'to one another'). Something more sound than mistranslations ~'nd, ostensibly, ideologized history should serve as a basis for a philosophy or Moral - but this is not my main objection. The real difficulty involved here is that if the dichotomy proposed by Bergson and Emmet is accepted, no place is left for moral distinction, moral demand, moral decision and moral judgment. Without being inspired by Bergson, but with an apparent attempt to inspire anthropologists to deal also with "powers" operating in the "blessed" - and in the disgraced - Emmet associates the one I 837

BOOK REVIEW had compared to the forgetful and neurotic actor with the magician and the shaman. As in most of her other examples, the example for this kind of "power" is taken from the story of the somewhat primitive society of the Ancient Hebrews: 'Bil'am' (Balaam). Her suggestion to the social scientist not to ignore psychological findings is being illustrated by her statement that Bil'am was probably neurotic. Neuroses of beings whose real existence is rather doubtful but whose parabolic nature is quite sure and clear are strange indeed. One can only hope that anthropologists who consider it relevant to use psychological concepts will not use these in order to diagnose mental illness in mythical creatures. One should hope they do not commit Emmet's error; as a matter of fact her Biblical "sociology" (and the very idea of it) is based on the indiscrimination of the position, and the symbols which serve to express it, of the "Ancient Hebrew" who narrated or accepted the Biblical stories, from the position of the "Ancient Hebrew" or "Ancient Moabite" those stories are about. One could analogously impute beliefs in witches and ghosts to the Ancient Englishman Shakespeare because the Ancient Scot Macbeth met the former in one of his plays and the Ancient Dane Hamlet met the latter in another. The protagonist of a story in which Moabites are ridiculed, and who is said to say that no incantations nor magic effect the Israelites or are practiced by them, i.e., Bil'am, seems important to Emmet because she imputes to the "Ancient Hebrews" beliefs in the magical power of blessing and cursing. Strange is her statement (probably based on the notion of Saints being the only persons capable of seeing Angels, or that he who had a vision of Angels deserved a Saint status) that the "Ancient Hebrews" believed "blessing," "Glory," and "holiness" can also "dwell" in things and animals: Bil'am's she-donkey did see an angel. But so did the Sodomites, they even saw two of them. Significantly, only Bil'am was unable to see what even his she-donkey could see. That is, he was unable to see while he was on his way to curse the people another One had preferred to bless, that One being the only actor whose acts of cursing and blessing were effective. (As the Ancient Hebrew who narrated the story believed.) One should really have a lot of imagination to believe, as it is implied by what Emmet says, that the Hebrews, when successful and flourishing, were not thankful to God for his "blessings" but rather happy to have been blessed by Bil'am. The admiration expressed by the anthropologist Victor Turner in his Forward to Emmet's book, for her classical (and other) erudition is my reason for those long discussions of prophets, Bil'am and 838

BOOK REVIEW his she-donkey. Many are able, if they wish, to examine the Scriptures, to criticize what Emmet says about the "Ancient Hebrews." Only few are capable to criticize in this way what anthropologists say of the so-called primitive societies. I wish we could have a justified faith in them; that when they analyse customs, beliefs, myths and idiomatic expressions they are able to distinguish what is only a parable or metaphor from what is literarily believed by the "primitives." I would have more faith in them if I could be convinced that anthropologists have given up the idea of looking for neuroses and complexes, replacing it by investigation of the symbolic systems which prevail in the cultures, to the members of which the investigator is the one who might appear to be insane. Beside the much discussed "powers," "purpose" is also dear to Emmet. Actually what Mr. Turner is enthusiastic with are her remarks about the three kinds of "teleology:" the "unconscious" one of the "function;" the individual's conscious purpose, and something which is a matter of personal "vocation." In Aristotle Emmet finds support for the first kind of "teleology;" Christian symbols help her to clarify the third one. Let it be unto God what belongs to God and unto Aristotle what belongs to Aristotle; what belongs to one or to the other does not belong to contemporary biologists and anthropologists. Aristotle was a wise man, not a prophet; nor was he a British philosopher sharing the opinions of his present day admirers. Emmet insists a distinction should be made between "purpose" and "function" as the individual does not necessarily act in order to maintain what the "function" is supposed to contribute to his existence. True, and the same error concerning 'the "Closed Morality" and "Open Moralty" is repeated here. But a further error is involved here, and rereading Kant can help to elucidate it. A man marries a woman for some purpose, to be sure. The "institution of marriage" with its specific rules has, so say the anthropologists, a "social function." I believe only a megalomaniac is able to marry a woman in order to maintain what the marriageinstitution is supposed to contribute to its existence, because only a megalomaniac can think that if he personally does not get married that which exists by virtue of the marriage institution will cease to exist. An ordinary man gets married for this purpose and that reason; but this very same person can believe (though without thinking of it day and night) that if all or most men avoid institutionalized marriage then something will cease to exist. It might be interesting to examine ways by which the anthropologist can show that a social "institution" has a certain "function" other than the way of asking people 839

BOOK REVIEW what they believe will happen if " n o b o d y " will respect its rules. That is, to examine whether it is meaningful to talk about "functions" which are discovered by a sort of "scientific method" and which are "latent," or, put differently, whether talking about "unconscious social teleology" has any sense. It is a fact that when a sociologist talks about the functions of "institutions" in his own society, both colleagues and laymen raise all kinds of objections. The anthropologist is more lucky: the members of the remote and foreign societies he talks about are not in a position to debate him. I do not pretend to state here that "latent function" is a matter of sufficient and necessary conditioning and not a matter of "teleology." I just hold it to be a very unclear notion. But I do, however, claim, contrary to Emmet's opinion and frequent declarations of some British anthropologists, that it is not an empirical issue, whereas dealing with purposes is a matter of "subjective" speculations. There is, in principle, a simple way to find out what is the purpose for which one acts: asking him about it. But how can the anthropologist find out the "latent functions" he imputed to an "institution" or "role" are really its "function?" At one out of a hundred cases he is lucky, and some intruding outsiders (say, the British Governor, or the missionary) interfere and prevent members of the society under study from acting in the way they always did. In that case one can at least check the results. When the anthropologist is not lucky, empirical test gives way to logical considerations and to ideology. Therefore it is not the philosopher's concern to remind social scientists of moral and religious matters; the problem of the social scientist is still one raised by Max Weber: to f'md a way to study social phenomena without the interference of moral and religious convictions. It is none of the philosopher's concern to applaud the social scientist when he says his way is "empirical," to praise his sort of an empirism a priori. (The empirism of British anthropology, as opposed to anti-empirism, actually consists of opposing explicit general, theories in the continental style. This opposition is ideological rather than methodological.) But it is certainly none of my concern to tell philosophers what they should be concerned about. Emmet says in her book also many sensible and clever things. I have not referred to them because they do not seem to be new and because I believe her purpose in writing the book was to express those ideas which I have tried to criticize. I believe the importance of such criticism (although not new) justifies my selective and thus 840

BOOK REVIEW unfair treatment of Emmet's book. It is doubly justified because criticisms of the book that first appeared in 1957 have not influenced the new edition. Ora Grungard Tel-Aviv University Tel-Aviv, Israel

841