Demystifying Mentalities

Professor Lloyd explores cultural diversity in terms of communication and not mentality.

Geoffrey Ernest Richard Lloyd (Author)

9780521366809, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 31 August 1990

184 pages
23 x 15.9 x 1.8 cm, 0.28 kg

If faraway peoples have different ideas from our own, is this because they have different mentalities? Did our remote ancestors lack logic? The notion of distinct mentalities has been used extensively by historians to describe and explain cultural diversity. Professor Lloyd rejects this psychologising talk of mentalities and proposes an alternative approach, which takes as its starting point the social contexts of communication. Discussing apparently irrational beliefs and behaviour (such as magic), he shows how different forms of thought coexist in a single culture but within conventionally defined contexts.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of science [PDA], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Anthropology [JHM], Cultural studies [JFC]