LĚVY-BRUHL, LUCIEN. – Philosopher and sociologist, born in Paris on 10 April 1857, died there on 13 March 1939. Professor at the Sorbonne, where he succeeded E. Boutroux, member of the Institute, and a student of sociology according to the system of A. Comte, he subsequently drew closer to that of the sociological school founded by E. Durkheim. He appreciated its extensive ethnological documentation, but rejected its rigorous schematism, which sacrificed the individual element exclusively for the benefit of the social element.
Of his philosophical works, the most notable is: La morale et la science des moeurs (Paris 1903). All the other volumes, six in number, are devoted to investigating the mentality of primitive peoples in their manner of apprehending reality (which, using a term he later himself repudiated, he calls «prelogical», insofar as it is independent of our logical schemes); this manner, he says, is characterized by a particular «participation» that the primitive experiences between himself and the world surrounding him, and which determines his thought and action. He remained constantly faithful to this idea of participation (while later excluding the possibility that it had the value of a law). Other works: Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures (Paris 1910, 2nd ed., 1923), in which he analyzes this mentality and illustrates the concept of «participation»; La mentalité primitive (ibid. 1924), devoted in particular to the concept of causality among primitive peoples; L'âme primitive (ibid. 1927), which the primitive is said to conceive as a «mystical» force present in all beings; Le surnaturel et la nature dans la mentalité primitive (ibid. 1931), on the manner in which the primitive pictures the supernatural world; La mythologie primitive (ibid. 1935), on the particular truth proper to myth and its consequent capacity to bring reality back to life when it is recalled or reconsidered; L'expérience mystique et les symboles chez les primitifs (ibid. 1938), which crowns all of L.-B.’s activity in this field, with particular regard to the function of the symbol. M. Leenhardet published posthumously the Carnets de L. L.-B. (Paris 1949), in which this conscientious scholar rethought and recorded the subject matter of his work with an ever-vigilant intellectual fervor.
L. L.-B.’s work is notable for the abundance of the material employed, which, within the framework of the six volumes cited, examines every aspect of the life and thought of primitive peoples. It represents a mitigation of the sociological exclusivism of Durkheim’s school, to which the mental activity of the individual remains foreign. Nevertheless, the idea of mystical-magical participation, on the basis of which he reconstructs the mentality of primitive peoples, ultimately reduces the concept of normal causality to nothing. He was therefore criticized not only by philosophers, but also by the ethnologists of the historical-cultural school, who further reproached him for using without discrimination facts
relating to ethnic groups
distant from and different
from one another, contrary
to one of the fundamental
canons of that school.
Nicola Turchi
LĚWĪ BEN
GĚRŠŌN: V. GERSONIDE.
(by courtesy of Fr. Michele Lacke S. J.)
LEVOČA - Madonna (15th century) venerated
in the sanctuary of the Marian Mountain.