Preface

71
relative! 76 It is one thing to trace logical presuppositions
(assuming the logical operations of a culture, in theory and in
practice, have been studied) in an intellectual tradition which
stresses consistency as highly as ours. It is another to explore such
presuppositions in cultures where a premium may be placed on
matters other than consistency. In short, while inference or
empirical evidence may be used to show that the Balinese
recognize and appeal to presuppositions, it remains a matter for
research how systematically, and under what conditions, ‘absolute
presuppositions’ are found (as opposed to how fervently they are
asserted). For present purposes, my concern is with meaning and
context, where recourse to such presuppositions tends to be an
essentializing strategy, and the transformation of hierarchy a
contextualizing one.
Context and human agency
Is it possible to infer a model from the Balinese material, which
would account for the ways context is invoked? I think not, for
several reasons. One obvious approach is to establish a set of
‘core’ or key presuppositions, change to which either produces so
much conceptual confusion or endangers the structure of authority,
that it can be taken as fairly stable. To do so however would be to
reify what I have called essentializing and contextualizing styles.
Neither is the exclusive prerogative of any group or caste; rather
they are two ways of attempting to work out how collective
representations should be applied to events and actions. 77
Relevance and context seem then only to be establishable
empirically. If it is not possible to circumscribe the relation
between cultural representations and actions in terms of a theory
76 Krausz remarks that what Collingwood identified as the Kantian absolute presupposition
of the indestructibility of substance, itself presupposed the existence of substance (1972:
236ff.).
77 Nor is it simple to extrapolate criteria of relevance from such core
presuppositions. The latter do not exist in a timeless Platonic world,
they are asserted. One would be assuming consistency in the postulated
core, such that alternative criteria of relevance could not be found. And,
as the definition of essential meaning is reached through Balinese usage,
relevance would have to be inferred a posteriori.