20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

602 Jan E.M. Houbenand center, whether in STAAL’s “syntax without semantics” sense, or inthe sense of the praxis of giving and exchange, or even in the sense ofHOUSEMAN and SEVERI’s relational praxis.Because STAAL himself does not present his view in the form of a strictargument but rather through a mixture of argumentation and instances ofreductio ad absurdum of opponent’s views, his position is best summarizedin the words of STRENSKI:I take six theses of Rules without Meaning: Ritual, Mantras and theHuman Sciences to be especially noteworthy:1. Staal opposes the common view that rituals are necessarily symbolicacts referring to something else (p. 115). Rather ritual is a “selfcontainedand self-absorbed” activity (p. 115), done “for its own sake... – a pure activity, without meaning or goal” (p. 131), an autonomousand irreducible activity, devoid of any utility (p. 155).2. Ritual is thus a kind of autonomous praxis: rule governed, with theaddition of sound, often of a musical nature (Ch. 1, 6).3. Thus, ritual is not a subdimension of religion or society. Whilereligion excels at being an activity rife with meaning, function andconsequence (p. 434), ritual is meaningless, without social functions orexternal references beyond it. Even when words do occur in rituals, theyare not necessarily meaningful. ...4. Therefore, syntax, and not semantics, is the key to explaining ritual(pp. 185, 188). Form, structure, “stylization” (p. 438), rules and purerelationship are the keys to explaining ritual, not its interpretation,meanings, purposes or functions.5. Yet, Staal admits as a matter of fact that we do find rituals withmeanings attached to them. But these meanings merely represent latersuperimpositions by language, layers of post facto interpretation laidupon a primitive meaninglessness.6. This notion of later superimposition of language and meaning upona bedrock of meaninglessness rests on a complex view about naturalevolution. First, Staal believes that ritual in his sense is common propertywe share with non-human animals. ... Second, human ritual life is a veryprimitive aspect of our animal natures, and therefore, evolutionarily priorto domains of human behavior where meaning matters, e.g. language. ...(STRENSKI 1991: 219-220)Critical reactions and discussions of STAAL’s theory of meaningless ritualappear even on the basis of the 1979 article (PENNER 1985). Others reviewSTAAL’s view on meaningless ritual together with his 1983 monumentaldescription of the Agnicayana ritual (STAAL et al. 1983) studied on the