TERMIUM Plus^®

Fiche 1,  Justifications,  Anglais

Record number: 1, Textual support number: 1 CONT

Lévy-Bruhl proposed two major characteristics of primitive thought. First of all, such thought partakes of the law of participation. Primitive individuals see objects, beings, and other external phenomena as at once identical with themselves and also as something other than themselves. Thus, the Trumai (a tribe in north Brazil) say that they are aquatic animals, meaning not that they are only fish, but rather that they are both human beings and fish, but rather that they are both human beings and fish at the same time. Second, and in a fashion no less incomprehensible to the Western mind, primitive individuals can emit and receive mystical forces, properties, and qualities, which are felt as outside themselves, without their ceasing to be what they are. Thus, a newborn child can suffer the consequences of everything his father does, eats, says, and the like (Cazeneuve 1972). Given these properties, the primitive mind does not abstain from contradiction. There is no need to give up an idea because it collides with another one: both notions can be entertained simultaneously.  1, fiche 1, Anglais, - law%20of%20participation

Fiche 1,  Justifications,  Français

Fiche 1,  Justifications,  Espagnol