Culture and Practical Reason - Marshall Sahlins

Marshall Sahlins’ provocative Culture and Practical Reason is a general critique that addresses the concepts and traditional distinctions between primitive and modern societies. The central purpose of this work is to dissolve the notion that practical reason alone can explain human action. Moreover, even in the realm of production and economics, modern society cannot be understood “without reference to the symbols and meanings that constitute its culture” (Swartz 1977:553). To achieve his end, Sahlins opens his work by establishing the limitations of social theory via a three-pronged debate beginning with Marxism, then British and finally French structuralism. Next, two anthropological paradigms are contrasted by outlining Morgan’s and Boas’s approach to practical reason and cultural reason respectively. Sahlins furthers his critique by establishing the problems within Marx’s historical materialism and its conflict with cultural analysis. Finally, he attempts to resolve the Western perception that primitive is to symbology as modern is to economy, by arguing that production itself is a cultural intention (Drummond 1977:83).

The first chapter in Cultural and Practical Reason entitled “Marxism and Two Structuralisms” focuses on a central issue of whether or not these approaches to understanding human existence can accurately and meaningfully describe “The West and the rest,” modern and primitive societies. He uses historical materialism and structuralism to begin his critique and introduce the problem of whether each of the societies are fundamentally distinct. And if they are, do they then require distinct social theories to explain them? Sahlins questions if historical materialism can offer an understanding of non-capitalist societies and if structuralism is capable of describing modern societies (Gudeman 1977:789). He sees modern and primitive anthropology theories tied specifically to Marx’s economics of modern society and Levi-Strauss’s structural analysis of primitive society. Sahlins concludes that the gap between societies does not lie at the feet of the societies, rather, the problem lies at the feet of the theories we use to explain them.

Sahlins furthers the discussion of practical and cultural reason in the second chapter by contrasting the anthropologies of Morgan and Boas. Practical reason conceives the cultural order as the codification of the purposeful and pragmatic actions of man (Sahlins 1976:55). Morgan sits comfortably in this camp and is credited with a utilitarian kind of functionalism (Leach 1977:560). He traces the lineage of practical reason with Morgan as the progenitor.

"Mind appears in Morgan’s theory as the instrument of cultural development rather than its author. Passive rather than active, simply rational rather than symbolic, the intelligence responds reflexively to situations it does not itself produce or organize, so that in the end a practical logic – biologic in the earlier stages, technologic in the later – is what is realized in cultural forms" (Sahlins 1976:58).

Malinowski is brought into the fold to illustrate the apex of this kind of reason because, according to Sahlins, he saw culture only as man’s apparatus to cope with the specific and concrete challenges that face them (Leach 1977:560).

Franz Boas is introduced as the contrarian to practical reason. His version of culture is not a reaction to the natural world but “a conceptual framework interposed between men and nature and proceeds to explore that framework along the lines of cultural reason” (Drummond 1977:81). Sahlins values Levi-Strauss for his attempts to make structuralism more dynamic and for his advocacy of meaning. Levi-Strauss’s meaning is generated from symbol positions within a symbol set and is the cultural approach to understanding human society and activity (Swatrz 1980:553).

This lengthy chapter also addresses the anthropological varieties of practical and cultural reason by contrasting several theorists from each side of the debate. Morgan, Malinowski, Murdock and Steward represent praxis while Boas, Levi-Strauss, and White represent meaning.

Sahlins dedicates an entire chapter to Marx to ultimately reinforce the concepts and opinions of the first two chapters, with slight derivation. “Anthropology and Two Marxisms,” drills deeper into the factions of cultural and practical reason within a Marxist scope. Parallels exist between the history of Marxism and the history of anthropological theory. For Sahlins, one “Marxism” is compatible to the concepts of culture of Baos and structuralism of Levi-Strauss. It is a refusal to reduce the social to the technological by means of economic determinism (Drummon 1977:82). However, the other Marxism steers in another direction. According to Sahlins, this direction is comparable and compatible with Malinowski. It perceives that categories into which the world has been divided is not by conscious social agreement, rather, “by a spontaneous endeavor to conquer the opposition of things” (Leach 1977:560).

Over the course of the book, Sahlins’ structuralist /symbolist/semiotic orientation builds and crescendos with “La Pensee Bourgeoise.” Through the examination of American food and clothing preferences, he identifies production as a system of cultural intentions where broad parameters exist and are shaped by the cultural process. Western societies cannot be understood without addressing the culture as a symbolic process (Drummond 1977:83). He argues that Western societies are only different from traditional societies because of the perception that the West is rational, utilitarian and needs conceived. Thus, Sahlins asserts, the true difference between modern and primitive societies is the symbolism of economy versus the symbolism of kinship as structural determinates.

Culture and Practical Reason attempts, centrally, to confront the relationships between “individual and collective, between praxis and consciousness, between social relations and symbolic structures” (Keesing 1980:130) – the essence of the practical versus cultural reason dialectic. Sahlins broadly phrases this debate with;

"Whether the cultural order is to be conceived as the codification of man’s actual purposeful and pragmatic action; or whether, conversely, human action in the world is to be understood as mediated by the cultural design, which gives order at once to practical experience, customary practice, and the relationship between the two" (Sahlins 1976:55).

Marshall Sahlins wrote Culture and Practical Reason in 1976. The majority of his research up to the writing of this book was dedicated to demonstrating the power of culture as a motivating force among people. He believes culture can shape and motivate actions and perceptions. His orientation to the symbolic nature of culture, and opposition to biological and economic determination has won him plenty of critics in the American anthropology landscape dominated by positivist thinkers advocating practical reason (Drummond 1977:81). Dr. Sahlins area of focus is the entire Pacific, however, most often in Fiji and Hawaii. Field work done in Fiji among the Moalans was used to illustrate structuralism in a primitive society in the first chapter. Sahlins utilized further field work, this time in America, in chapter four to elucidate his theory that production itself is a system of cultural intention.


Works Cited:

Drummond, Lee
1979 Review of Culture and Practical Reason. In Ethnohistory 26(1):81-83.

Gudeman, Stephan
1977 Review of Culture and Practical Reason. In American Ethnologist 4(4):788- 792.

Keesing, Roger M.
1980 Review of Culture and Practical Reason. In American Anthropologist 82(1):130-131.

Leach, Edmund
1977 Review of Culture and Practical Reason. In Man 12(3/4):559-561.

Sahlins, Marshall
1976 Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Swartz, Marc J.
1977 Review of Culture and Practical Reason. In Science 197(4303):553-554.