Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

General problem of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 491
law in tribal societies, and one which is still under study today: how does one
move from a structure which is simply regular or balanced to a system of rules
or norms? In the sociology of law the formula we have quoted emphasises with
great truth that custom does not suffice so long as there has been no ‘recogni-
tion’. Similarly in the field of moral facts neither habit nor example are suffi-
cient, so long as a certain relation of ‘respect’ or recognition of avalue connected
with the person has not been established (and no longer connected merely with
transpersonal functions or services, as in the legal sphere). But in the field of
intellectual operations where, as we have just seen, the very form of the norms
determines their content, although logic is certainly a morality of the exchange
of thought and of cognitive co-operation, a certain coefficient of internal
necessity attaches to any deduction based on a balanced operational structure,
as though the transition from action to reversible operation were sufficient to
engender the regulated structure which governs cognitive common production
as well as individual constructs. Lastly, in the sphere of patterns of habit and
perception peculiar to the individual alone, although no normative necessity is
involved, there nevertheless exist phenomena of predominance due to an
internal balance where there is no longer any question of norms but where we
are nevertheless faced with an attenuated form of that necessity which dominates
in the higher varieties of balance.
Hence the trend which we discern in this line of research would lead to the
acceptance of the fact that the transition of structures into rules presupposes two
conditions. The preliminary condition is a condition of balance : the structure
becomes a rule only if it closes back on itself in a sufficiently balanced form
which expresses itself in predominances of different kinds if that balance is due
to regulations, and by intrinsic necessity if it is operational. The second condition
appears with inter-individual relations and is once again a matter of forms of
balance, but in this case forms which are relative to these collective situations :
their regulations or the operations which derive from them are then expressed
by those different states of consciousness which lead from trans-personal rec-
ognition or from respect for persons to various forms of obligation properly
speaking.
9. Diachronic and synchronic problems in the field of norms
It is well-known that linguistics, beginning with the works of F. de Saussure,
has proceeded to dissociate diachronic studies, or studies of history and evolu-
tion of language, from synchronic considerations connected with the balance
of language as an existing system in a state of relative independence from its
past. We also know the extent to which economic crises can modify the state
of values and so dissociate them from their previous history. On the contrary
it is in the nature of rules or norms to introduce compulsory conservation,
which is why their function is of such great importance in the life of societies and
individuals. The norm is therefore by its very nature the essential instrument of
connexion between the diachronic and the synchronic.