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The Imagined, the Imaginary and the Symbolic
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Exploring the close relationship between the real, the symbolic and imaginary
Lévi-Strauss held that “the real, the symbolic and the imaginary” are three separate orders. Maurice Godelier demonstrates the contrary: the real is not separate from the symbolic and the imaginary. Godelier’s book goes to the strategic heart of the social sciences, for to examine the nature and role of the imaginary and the symbolic is also to attempt to account for the basic components of all societies and ultimately of human existence. And these aspects in turn shape our social and personal identity.
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After ‘Marx,’ ‘Durkheim’ and ‘Weber,’ after the first fifty years of ethnographic and historical exploration, after Lévi-Strauss and the next fifty years of ethnographic and historical research, what might the ‘Frazer’ of our times write? Maurice Godelier’s gripping essay gives us an idea. Verging on a Jeremiad, drawing from predecessors near and far for a synthesis “in the grand style,” The Imagined, the Imaginary and the Symbolic probes our current state of learning. In so doing it sets the conditions for posing new questions for the next generations struggling not only to know the others and the pasts but to create societies for the future. The grand synthesizer, Godelier has given us another gift for the times.