Goals and Behaviour

In the first part of this paper I intend to argue that anthropologists have a predominantly causal conception of explanation and that the only feasible way to avoid this is to apply consistently the assumption of goal-orientation of behaviour, that is to hold what could broadly be called a teleological conception of explanation – a view that developments are due to the purpose or design that is served by them. Further on I will try to show that groups and norms do not exist and act independently of people. They have no existence as “things” apart from forming a part of the relevant stock of knowledge of the members of society. They can be brought to bear on actions only by people invoking them. Thus we have to make a sharp distinction between the conceptual or notional level of phenomena, and the transactional or processual level, sometimes known as cultural and social respectively.

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