[Xmca-l] Re: kinship

Sun Jan 7 15:54:43 PST 2018

I guess this is biologists' way of distinguishing the different levels of
groupings they make. A plant belongs to a family or subfamily; families
group into an order; orders group into clade ... all the way up to kingdom

Don't we do something similar in the social world?

You can have a family with 2 persons, but it includes a child, such as in
"single-parent family"; but two adults living together tend not to be
referred to as a family but as a couple

Michael

Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Applied Cognitive Science
MacLaurin Building A567
University of Victoria
Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>

New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
<https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>*

On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 3:42 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:

> Hi Michael. Yes, I meant the plants. And I know that only humans produce
> definition. In my clumsy way, I was trying to ask what definition of
> ‘family’ you were employing when you stated that plants form families.
>
> Martin
>
> "I may say that whenever I meet Mrs. Seligman or Dr. Lowie or discuss
> matters with Radcliffe-Brown or Kroeber, I become at once aware that my
> partner does not understand anything in the matter, and I end usually with
> the feeling that this also applies to myself” (Malinowski, 1930)
>
>
>
> > On Jan 7, 2018, at 6:34 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth <
> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Martin, I looked up the etymologies in English, French and German. All
> > point to the Latin origin of family and familiar and the tie of the
> latter
> > to the former.
> >
> > The Russian and Polish translation point to different words.
> >
> > Not my definition.
> >
> > If you mean the plants...only humans produce definitions... you then
> might
> > be interested in Dewey and Bateson on natural situations and human
> > descriptions
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------------
> > Applied Cognitive Science
> > MacLaurin Building A567
> > University of Victoria
> > Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> > http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
> >
> > New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
> > <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-
> directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-
> mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 3:28 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >> By your definition or theirs, Michael?
> >>
> >> Martin
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Jan 7, 2018, at 6:23 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth <
> >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> but plants form families, too
> >>>
> >>> the familiar is linked to family apparently in languages that have
> >> adopted
> >>> the term from Latin, but not languages as Polish or Russian
> >>>
> >>> Michael
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> --------------------
> >>> Applied Cognitive Science
> >>> MacLaurin Building A567
> >>> University of Victoria
> >>> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> >>> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
> >>>
> >>> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
> >>> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-
> >> directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-
> >> mathematics-of-mathematics/>*
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 2:49 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> So James,
> >>>>
> >>>> Could a childless couple in China be called a family?
> >>>>
> >>>> Or would they need to have a pig?  :)
> >>>>
> >>>> To all: In English we don’t call a childless couple a family, do we?
> >>>>
> >>>> Martin
> >>>>
> >>>> "I may say that whenever I meet Mrs. Seligman or Dr. Lowie or discuss
> >>>> matters with Radcliffe-Brown or Kroeber, I become at once aware that
> my
> >>>> partner does not understand anything in the matter, and I end usually
> >> with
> >>>> the feeling that this also applies to myself” (Malinowski, 1930)
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Jan 7, 2018, at 5:45 PM, James Ma <jamesma320@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Just to add an etymological aspect that you might be interested to
> know
> >>>>> (this is because Chines is logographical).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> According to the Chinese Oracle, family 家 has two parts: the upper
> >>>>> part 宀 refers
> >>>>> to "room"; the lower part 豕 refers to "pig". In the ancient times,
> >> people
> >>>>> raised pigs in their houses, so having pigs in a house was a hallmark
> >> of
> >>>>> living. In modern Chinese, family also indicates "relationship", e.g.
> >>>> 亲如一家
> >>>>> as close as a family.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> James
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> *_____________________________________*
> >>>>>
> >>>>> *James Ma*  *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa
> >>>>> <https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa>   *
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 7 January 2018 at 21:30, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> In Chinese and in Korean, the word "family" is related to housing
> >> rather
> >>>>>> than to kinship. In European languages it is the other way around.
> >> This
> >>>>>> does suggest something semantic, no?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> David Kellogg
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Recent Article in *Mind, Culture, and Activity* 24 (4) 'Metaphoric,
> >>>>>> Metonymic, Eclectic, or Dialectic? A Commentary on “Neoformation: A
> >>>>>> Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change”'
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Free e-print available (for a short time only) at
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YAWPBtmPM8knMCNg6sS6/full
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 6:22 AM, Greg Thompson <
> >>>> greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Martin,
> >>>>>>> Well that is a difficult question to answer without knowing what
> you
> >>>> mean
> >>>>>>> by "family"?
> >>>>>>> What in the world do you mean by "family"?
> >>>>>>> -greg
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 12:59 PM, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net
> >
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I am struggling with the way ‘family’ and ‘kinship’ have been
> >> defined,
> >>>>>> or
> >>>>>>>> not defined, in psychology and anthropology. One question that has
> >>>>>>> occurred
> >>>>>>>> to me is whether a word equivalent to ‘family’ exists in every
> >>>>>> language.
> >>>>>>>> When I Google this, Google responds ‘Ask Siri’…  :(
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Anyone have an idea?
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Martin
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> >>>>>>> Assistant Professor
> >>>>>>> Department of Anthropology
> >>>>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> >>>>>>> Brigham Young University
> >>>>>>> Provo, UT 84602
> >>>>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
> >>>>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_
> >>>> source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
> >>>>> Virus-free.
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> >>>>> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> >>
>
>