L’invariant introuvable

Socio-anthropologie

关键词: invariant;    comparatism;    structuralism;    transformation;    comparative mythology;   

DOI  :  10.4000/socio-anthropologie.3165

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The aim here is to seek, in the famous quarrel between Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, the almost unnoticed matrix of a central question in the human sciences: the status of the invariant. This question is closely linked to determining the kind of comparatism that one wishes to implement. It is a matter of distinguishing between a de facto invariant and a de jure invariant, by re-expressing in the sciences of language and myth that which may have tilted the debate in favour of a de facto invariant—such as the “mother tongue” or the “Indo–European people”—to the constant detriment of the de jure invariant. This last invariant must remain untraceable, lest there be a misunderstanding that would consist in wanting to find the invariant in one of its variations – which would then be erroneously selected from among all the others. From Geoffroy Saint Hilaire to Claude Lévi-Strauss, the article attempts to trace the milestones of a lineage that has remained in the shadows, the lineage of the thinkers of a “phantom” invariant.

【 授权许可】

Unknown