''Rules and Meanings: The Anthropology of Everyday Knowledge. Selected Readings'' is an anthology of readings in cultural anthropology and the sociology of knowledge, edited by

Mary Douglas Dame Mary Douglas, (25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology. Douglas was considered a follower of Émile Durkhei ...

and first published by

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.cognitive anthropology Cognitive anthropology is an approach within cultural anthropology and biological anthropology in which scholars seek to explain patterns of shared knowledge, cultural innovation, and transmission over time and space using the methods and theorie ...

taught by Douglas at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. She not only selected the readings, but also provided a general introduction to the volume and a brief introduction to each of the eight sections. The theme running throughout is that "reality is socially constructed".''Rules and Meanings'', p. 9.

A number of writers are represented by multiple excerpts in more than one section. Each is listed below only at first mention. *Part One, "Tacit Conventions", contains excerpts from the writings of

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...

Alfred Schütz Alfred Schutz (; born Alfred Schütz, ; 1899–1959) was an Austrian philosopher and social phenomenologist whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions. Schutz is gradually being recognized as one of the 20th century's leadin ...

Harold Garfinkel Harold Garfinkel (October 29, 1917 – April 21, 2011) was an American sociologist and ethnomethodologist, who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles. Having developed and established ethnomethodology as a field of inquiry in sociolo ...

and

E. E. Evans-Pritchard Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, Kt FBA FRAI (21 September 1902 – 11 September 1973) was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology. He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University ...

. *Part Two "The Logical Basis of Constructed Reality", provides selections from works by

Émile Durkheim David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...

and

Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss (; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and a ...

, James C. Faris,

Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...

, and

Godfrey Lienhardt Ronald Godfrey Lienhardt (17 January 1921 – 9 November 1993) was a British anthropologist. He took many photographs of the Dinka people he studied. He wrote about their religion in ''Divinity and Experience: the Religion of the Dinka''. Lif ...

. *Part Three, "Orientations in Time and Space", includes writing by

Julius Alfred Roth Julius A. Roth (1924 – 2002) was Professor of Sociology at University of California, Davis. He is best known for his 1963 groundbreaking work in medical sociology, ''Timetables: Structuring the Passage of Time in Hospital Treatment and Other Care ...

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

(from '' Silence: Lectures and Writings''),

M. L. J. Abercrombie Minnie Abercrombie (14 November 1909 – 25 November 1984), also known as M. L. J. Abercrombie, was a British zoologist, educationalist and psychologist. She was known for her work on invertebrates and her work in the publishing industry, condu ...

Lorna Marshall Lorna Marshall (born Lorna Jean McLean; September 14, 1898 – July 8, 2002) was an anthropologist who in the 1950s, 60s and 70s lived among and wrote about the previously unstudied !Kung people of the Kalahari Desert.Douglas Martin, "Lorna Mars ...

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...

and Peter Gidal. *Part Four, "Physical Nature Assigned to Classes and Held to Them by Rules", opens with an excerpt from Mr Justice Ormrod's summing up in the case

Corbett v Corbett ''Corbett v Corbett (otherwise Ashley)'' is a 1970 family law divorce case heard between November and December 1969 by the High Court of England and Wales in which Arthur Corbett sought annulment of his marriage to April Ashley. Corbett (the h ...

, and further includes passages penned by

Robert Hertz Robert Hertz (22 June 1881, Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine – 13 April 1915, Marchéville, Meuse (department), Meuse) was a French sociologist who was killed in active service during World War I. Hertz was a student at the École Normale Supérieure ...

, Franz Steiner, Mrs Humphry,

Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah (16 January 1929 – 19 January 2014) was a social anthropologist and Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor ''(Emeritus)'' of Anthropology at Harvard University. He specialised in studies of Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Tamils, a ...

, and

Ralph Bulmer Ralph Neville Hermon Bulmer (3 April 1928 – 18 July 1988) was a twentieth-century ethnobiologist who worked in Papua New Guinea, particularly with the Kalam people. From 1974 he made a radical shift by changing the role of his Kalam inform ...

. *Part Five, "The Limits of Knowledge", again uses Wittgenstein and Husserl, as well as

Basil Bernstein Basil Bernard Bernstein (1 November 1924 – 24 September 2000) was a British sociologist known for his work in the sociology of education. He worked on socio-linguistics and the connection between the manner of speaking and social organizatio ...

. *Part Six, "Interpenetration of Meanings", provides an excerpt from D. R. Venables and R. E. Clifford, ''Academic Dress of the University of Oxford'' (1957), as well as from Tom Wolfe's ''

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test ''The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'' is a 1968 nonfiction book by Tom Wolfe. The book is a popular example of the New Journalism literary style. Wolfe presents a firsthand account of the experiences of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, ...

'' (1968), from an anonymous 19th-century etiquette manual (1872), from Lucy Grace Allen's ''Table Service'' (1915), and from the 7th edition of ''Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described'' (1943) by

Adrian Fortescue Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue (14 January 1874 – 11 February 1923) was an English Catholic priest and polymath. An influential liturgist, artist, calligrapher, composer, polyglot, amateur photographer, Byzantine scholar, and ...

and John Berthram O'Connell. *Part Seven, "Provinces of Meaning", includes excerpts from

C. W. M. Hart Charles William Merton Hart (1905–1976) was a social anthropologist and sociologist best known for his study of the Tiwi people of the Bathurst Island (Northern Territory), Bathurst and Melville Island, Northern Territory, Melville Islands (or Ti ...

and Arnold R. Pilling's ''The Tiwi of North Australia'',

Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include ''Demian'', ''Steppenwolf (novel), Steppenwolf'', ''Siddhartha (novel), Siddhartha'', and ''The Glass Bead Game'', ...

's ''

The Glass Bead Game ''The Glass Bead Game'' (german: link=no, Das Glasperlenspiel, ) is the last full-length novel by the German author Hermann Hesse. It was begun in 1931 in Switzerland, where it was published in 1943 after being rejected for publication in Germa ...

'', and Leo Sherley-Price's translation of the

Little Flowers of St. Francis The ''Little Flowers of St. Francis'' ( it, Fioretti di San Francesco) is a florilegium (excerpts of his body of work), divided into 53 short chapters, on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi that was composed at the end of the 14th century. The ...

. *Part Eight, "Formal Correspondences", contains pieces written by S. M. Salim, Alan Segal,

Roger Vailland Roger Vailland (16 October 1907 – 12 May 1965) was a French novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. Biography Vailland was born in Acy-en-Multien, Oise. His novels include the prize winning ''Drôle de jeu'' (1945), ''Les mauvais coups'' (194 ...

, and M. A. K. Halliday.

References

External links

*Re-edition as volume 4 of ''Mary Douglas: Collected Works'', o
google books
{{Mary Douglas 1973 non-fiction books Anthropology books Books about social constructionism Books by Mary Douglas

Contents

References

External links