Lévi-Straus, C., 1978, Myth and Meaning, Routledge, London
- Author : Lévi-Straus, C.
- Year : 1978
- Title English : Myth and Meaning
- Publisher : Routledge
- Publisher's Location : London
- ISBN : 978-25394-9-0-415
- Pages : 48
- Edition : Paperback
- Comments : p. 9 It is. I think, absolutely impossible to conceive of meaning without order. There is something very curious in semantics, that the word 'meaning' is probably, in the whole language, the word the meaning of which it is the most difficult to find. What does 'to mean' mean? It seems to me that the only answer we can give is that 'to means' means the ability of any kind of data to be translated in a different language. I do not mean a different language like French or German, but different words on a different level. After all, this translation is what a dictionary is expected to give you - the meaning of the word in different words, which on a slightly different level are isomorphic to the word or expression you are trying to understand. Now, what would a translation be without rules? It would be absolutely impossible to understand. Because you cannot replace any word by any other word or any sentence by any other sentence, you have to have rules of translation. To speak of rules and to speak of meaning is to speak of the same thing: and if we look at the intellectual undertakings of mankind, as far as they have been recorded all over the world, the common denominator is always to introduce some kind of order. If this represents a basic need for order in the human mind and since, after all, the human mind is only part of the universe, the need probably exists because there is some kind of order in the universe and the universe is not a chaos.
- Outline : Introduction 1. The Meeting of Myth and Science 2. 'Primitive' thinking and the 'Civilised' Mind 3. Harelips and Twins: The Splitting of a Myth 4. When Myth becomes History 5. Myth and Music