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One of the most influential anthropologists of the 20th century was the late Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), the father of structuralism and the idea that all of life must be understood "within the whole of its physico-chemical reactions,” and this included language and meaning.

 

He vigorously opposed the notion that concepts, ideas, or forms common to all have inherent meanings structured in the subconscious and that these meanings could be triggered and brought to consciousness in a socio-linguistic situation.

 

To the dismay of committed materialists like Harris, he didn't completely reject mentalism.  He proposed that something common to all mankind indeed was chemically "structured" in the brain/mind.

 

That mental something common to all that was chemically "structured" in the brain/mind were non-verifiable empty meaningless forms or "molds" awaiting the day when they would be filled with the correct predestined meanings, meanings imported from the "outside." He therefore proposed: “It is only forms and not contents which can be common.  If there are common [meaning] contents they must be sought either in the objective properties of particular nature or artificial entities or in diffusion and borrowing, in either case, that is, outside the mind."  But we must ask, what does "outside the mind" mean?  

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First, the terms "diffusion," and "borrowing" clearly imply the existence of minds in which forms and meaning-content are disseminated though language from one group to the next. The process is called "diffusion," of "borrowing."  

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Unlike his grandfather, Lévi-Strauss lived at a time when the "enlightenment" collided with the traditional teachings of the rabbis for whom man "created in the image of God" implied both personhood and the existence of inherent meanings attached to universal cultural forms in the mind without which communication in language would not be possible. 

 

As a youth, Lévi-Strauss no doubt was well versed in the teachings of the Torah. But instead of wrestling with what it meant to be "created in the image and likeness of God," as a committed atheist, he nevertheless wrestled with the problem of personhood.  

 

As an anthropologist-philosopher of the enlightenment, he recognized that thinking, language, communication, culture, and personhood were impossible if the constituents of knowledge, form and meaning-content, were not linked together.  He was thinking like a rabbi who interpreted the Torah literally.

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But as a committed materialist who rejected the teaching of the Torah, he recognized he had a metaphysical problem.  If form and meaning-content, the constituents of knowledge,  were actually linked together when "God breathed into man and man became a living thinking person" (Genesis 2:7), then his evolutionary hypotheses that primates became people the moment the two were linked together would not hold. No matter how irrational, the evolutionary doctrine of environmental fitness demanded that form and meaning-content be separated. 

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Linkage of form and meaning-content at creation implied that just as this personal God called Yahweh knows, thinks, and communicates in language, so does man whom he created in his image. But if his Torah committed grandfather was right and ESSENCE, the possession of  innate Knowledge actually PRECEDED EXISTENCE, it meant that form and meaning-content were linked together before history.  It meant human existence and history began when "God breathed into man and man became a living thinking person."  

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But as a son of the enlightenment, such thinking was unacceptable.  Atheistic materialism demanded that the  Biblical account be interpreted as a figure of speech.

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Now despite the disagreement as to whether existence preceded essence as postulated by Jean Paul-Sartre or vice versa, both the concept-innatist and the structuralist  agree that either the unconscious mind or brain had to be "structured" before one could communicate in language.  ​ So the metaphysical question for Lévi-Strauss  became: "What does it mean for the brain to be structured with  information."?

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For Claude Lévi-Strauss, the founder of structural anthropology, it meant the brain was only partially structured.  For Christian philosopher Gordon Clark (1902-1985) it was the mind which was structured, and it wasn't partial.  "Man's mind is not initially blank.  It is structured. In fact, and unstructured mind is no mind at all."   Clark was a concept-innatist who believed that form and meaning-content were linked when Adam was created in "the image of God." 

 

For this writer, the mind was "structured" with a priori Knowledge, knowledge of universal forms to which are attached Divine meanings, for an unstructured mind meant man ceased to be man. This structure took the form of an Interpretative System in which each child comes into the world fully equipped to see reality from a Divine Perspective.  It was a mind in which form and meaning-content were linked. So the question became WHEN were the two, form and meaning-content linked?

 

According to Lévi-Strauss, form and meaning-content were linked together when empty forms in the brain were filled with imported meaning-content belonging to homo erectus.  At that moment, a miracle took place.  Personhood, language, and history began.  Personhood, language, and human existence did not begin when "God breathed into the material form of man the breath of life" (Genesis 2:7).   

 

Now as a conflicted materialist raised by a rabbi, Lévi-Strauss attempted to merge Genesis 2:7 with materialism.  Darwinist Richard Webster correctly points this out, saying: "He (Levi-Strauss) was not proclaiming a “fresh theory of human nature but rather Judaeo-Christian orthodoxies which have been reconstructed in a secular form, safe from the attacks of science precisely because they are presented as science.”  I would call it fake, hocus-pocus science. 

 

By merging Judaeo orthodoxies with materialism, the brain was only partially "structured."  In his words, “It is only forms and not contents which can be common.  If there are common contents they must be sought......outside the mind."   This means meaning-content had to be imported from outside the brain before personhood and language could begin. 

 

In the word of Lévi-Strauss: "Language [and personhood] was born all at once. Whatever the moment and the circumstances of its appearing in the range of animal life, language has necessarily appeared all at once. ...A change has taken place, from a stage where nothing had meaning to a stage where everything had."  

 

The late cultural materialist Marvin Harris agreed, saying "The process of sapienization unfolded in a synchronized fashion across all of Eurasia and Africa, and that no continent or region moved toward Homo sapiens status more rapidly than any other."  Professor Harris, unknown to me,  believed in miracles.  Naked apes scattered on different continents all became people at the same time!  It occurred when empty forms structured in the brains of naked apes were fill with meaning-content imported from the outside.

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In contrast, for Clark the theist, the linkage between form and meaning-content took place when God "breathed into man and man became a living person" (Genesis 2:7). There existed no empty forms. For Clark, ESSENCE PRECEDED EXISTENCE,  that is, Adam possessed a structured mind containing a priori Divine Meanings attached to forms or concepts common to all.

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Convictions: ​

1. If God is going to communicate meaningfully with man and man with God and his fellowman, then there has to exist in the mind of man concepts to which are attached Divine Meanings, meanings which can be triggered, brought to consciousness, and verbalized.

2. Man and society have the capacity to reject inherent meanings attached  to concepts held in common as well as the capacity to replace these inherent meanings with meanings that belong to the people. The process is called ETIC DIVERGENCE. Such semantic divergence destroys positive communication and increases social disorder.

3. Rejection of the spiritual phenomenon of ETIC DIVERGENCE leads to functionalism and the reduction of people to what Kraft calls "person things.”