Bahai Philosophy and the Question of the Environment

For Levi-Bruhl, totemic logic was opposed to modern, rational, and scientific logic.

According to him, the distinctive element of modern and scientific logic is the law of

contradiction which affirms that contradictory propositions cannot be simultaneously true, that A

is A and cannot be not-A. For Levi-Bruhl, totemic logic was the opposite of modern and rational

logic precisely because it was based on contradiction and metamorphosis. As Levi-Bruhl pointed

out, in the totemic consciousness humans are simultaneously nonhuman. Humans are both human

and totemic, since it is the totem, a natural object, which is the ancestor of the tribe. Religious

ceremonies represent other forms of this metamorphosis. Mythic logic reflects the continuous

transformation of nature into culture and vice versa. Levi-Bruhl also argued that the logic of

premodern societies is based on the fundamental principle of the homogeneity of all beings. The

essence of reality was held to be a creative force that took different forms in different things.

That is why, Levi-Bruhl argued, premoderns believed in the unity of human beings and other

natural species, portrayed in art beings that are simultaneously human and animal, identified

humans as group members and not as independent individuals, and identified particular objects

with their species

Levi-Strauss criticized parts of the theories of Durkheim and Levi-Bruhl. He rejected a

qualitative gap between modern logic and totemic consciousness and questions the universality

and even the religious character of totemic systems. However, he affirmed in a different form the

underlying principle of mutual exchange and the kinship of the cultural and natural worlds in

mythological logic. Mythology reflects a concrete representation of the system of classification

and the structural relations which constitute the identity of a group and its relation to the other

groups and the world. The component parts of these relations vary in different mythologies, but

the underlying structure of exchange relations remains intact. The harmony, kinship, and

metamorphosis of the culture and nature remain universal while the substantive elements of these

relations vary from group to group. It is a structure which affirms both the opposition and unity

of cultural and natural realities. In other words, what is crucial in all mythic systems of

classification is that the social and cultural system of classification is mirrored in the system of

natural classification. It is the principle of homology among different classification patterns that

defines the structure of mythology. This leads again to a system of proportion and repetition. For

instance, the relation between the sacred and the profane is repeated in relations of purity and

impurity, male and female, superior and inferior, fertilizing rain and fertilized land, and bad

season and good season.