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The word” mentality “was coined by the anthropologist Levi-Bruhl in 1910, suggesting that savages think so differently from Europeans that their thinking should be called in a special way:”Primitive mentality.” According to Levi-Bruhl, there are only two mentalities – “our” and “primitive”.
Five years later, Emile Durkheim shows that this juxtaposition is too crude and criticizes Levi-Bruhl for presenting thinking as something static and unchanging.
In the 1920s, the historical school “Annales” appeared in France, which introduced the term “mentality” into scientific use. The word is the same, but the principle from which the school proceeds is completely different-a person is changeable. People think differently at different times. Historians of the “Annals” school try to find general patterns of thinking, but they always start from the thinking of specific people in specific circumstances.
So, for example, Lucien Fevre poses such questions as” Did Francois Rabelais have the categories of abstract and concrete?”, and Carlo Ginzburg reconstructs the worldview of a miller who lived in the XVI century.
Historical science, since the time of the Annals school, has been raising philosophical questions and studying, among other things, the transformation of thinking.
The term “mentality” or “mentality” refers to those general patterns of thinking that the historian was able to identify. No one has any complaints about “mentality” in this sense, the point is rather whether the term has taken root or not in a particular science. Outside of the Annals School, it is almost never used.
What does Ekaterina Shulman criticize when she calls mentality a pseudoscientific concept? She criticizes the everyday view of mentality as an unchanging way of thinking, that is, ignoring the methodology of the Annals school and returning to the term Levi-Bruhl.
The humanities trace transformations and changes. When the average person says “the mentality of the British” and “the mentality of the Russians” – he means that there are no changes. Such a “mentality” is fate, look here for questions like ” is it possible to change the mentality of the nation?”. There is “we”, there is “they”. We always think this way, they always think differently.
Fate and the opposition of abstract “them” to abstract ” us ” have nothing to do with science.
The word “mentality” is an example of how initially a scientific term becomes a common concept and is used, as it is called by everyone who is not lazy. Moreover, the vast majority of people understand the meaning of this word purely intuitively, from the practice of its application. The most interesting thing is that it is this intuitive meaning that is already becoming the only one used! Now, in order to fix the concept of mentality strictly scientifically, it is already necessary to start from its current understanding in the public consciousness. Be that as it may, the concept of “mentality” correlates with the really existing and demanding definition of the characterological features of the thinking of individual peoples, with something peculiar to the thinking of representatives of this people. Apparently, the complexity of expressing these features in the form of strict scientific formulations makes the word mentality so convenient, which, without having an exact definition, nevertheless calls something and everyone understands what it is about.
Because anthropology (which studies mentality) does not belong to the level of sciences (corresponding to the discipline of logic and the class of judgments), but to the level of religion (corresponding to the discipline of imagination and the class of representations).
Science seeks truth, and religion seeks holiness.
Anthropology just reveals in detail the teaching about man, his spirit, soul and body, all kinds of natural and Divine abilities achieved by various feats, Angelic and demonic likeness through changing and improving the mentality, i.e. thinking, which leads to real holiness, confirmed by real centuries-old church practice.
To the extent that the mentality is determined by objective factors in the formation of features and character of thinking, value orientations and attitudes of socio-economic existence. It is a category of science.
First, we need to start with who considers mentality to be a pseudoscientific concept, and does anyone? Secondly, why should it be a scientific concept if it is already clear and obvious? And third , why are they trying to push the idea that there is no such thing as a mentality? Probably to make us think that we are all the same… and they became the same in pims and padded jackets?
Probably because the word usage is too broad.I see no reason why he should turn from the pseudoscientific to the scientific proper. It would be interesting to know who M. Levy-Bruhl referred to as “wild” and who as “ours.” Although I guess so.