Etymology And Magic Yaskas Nirukta Flatos Cratylus And Riddle Of Semanticetymologies

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

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Johannes Bronkhorst
Etymology and Magic
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Strong sides, has indeed not been able to exorcise the ghosts of Tylor and Frazer
In a way Tambiah's latest position is not very different from the one presented by Skorupski already in 1976, in a work mentioned earlier. Skorupski, to discusses the relationship between magic and perfor mative acts, he speaks in this connection of operative actions. While emphasizing the identificationist view of symbolic magic, he concedes that magic can be incorporated within operative theory if it is inter preted as a way of triggering a consequential action, that is as a way of signalling what is being done and thereby doing it" (Skorupski, 1976: 153: cp. Cunningham, 1999: 84). It is further interesting to note that L. Wittgenstein, who often appears to hold an expressive, antiinstrumental view of magic, elsewhere provides the most persuasive arguments against his own anti-instrumental objections, so that what we have is more a matter of genuine ambivalence than simple incon
sistency 66
mean that all things are related to or identical with everything that they resemble, even though this belief has occasionally been maintained (e.g. in Renaissance magic), as we have seen. The apparently widespread conviction that similarity can indicate relatedness or identity between things allows us to make sense of semantic etymologies. These etymologies are meant to reveal the connections that exist between the words concerned, and consequently between the things denoted by them.
We must be careful not to attribute explicit convictions of this kind to all those who use semantic etymologies. This would be as mistaken as attributing similar ideas to those who practice homeopathic (or imitative) magic; this was Frazer's mistake, for which he has repeatedly been chided, as we have seen. Most users of semantic etymologies will not have any systematic world view that explains their assumed validity. In this respect they contrast with those users of magic who often "explain the presumed efficacy of magical acts with the help of notions of spirits or something of the kind. An exception is constituted by certain Neoplatonic thinkers who, as we have seen, elaborated a view of the world in which similarities, also between words, played a central role
How about the other explanation of magical acts that we have discussed? Is the notion of speech acts in a performative and persuasive mode' able to account for semantic etymologies? This is unlikely. Se mantic etymologies are not performative acts and have no persuasive validity, as far as I can see; they certainly don't in early and classical Indian literature. Their aim appears to be to bring to light existing connections or identities (i.e., connections or identities that are presumed to exist), not to bring about new connections or to persuade others.
This leads us to the following conclusion. Semantic etymologies share with many acts of so-called sympathetic magic the underlying belief that similar things can be related to, or even identical with, each other. This belief is not normally systematized (with some rare exceptions), and indeed it is rarely formulated. It is for this reason perhaps better to speak of it as an intuition rather than as a consciously held belief. There is no claim that all similar things are related to each
Let us now return to our main subject matter, semantic etymologies Does the above discussion about magical acts help us to understand these etymologies better? It does if we assume - with Tambiah, with Skorupski and. yes, with Frazer - that at least in certain cases magical acts are believed to transform nature or the world of natural things and manifestations" (Tambiah). In other words, things are accepted -in specific circumstances perhaps - to be related to or identical with certain other things which they resemble. This does not have to
of the two laws of sympathetic magic as observed in the psychology of disgust, see Pinker. 1997: 378 ff.
68 One may also wonder - as did Sharpe a quarter century ago (1975: 94) - whether perhaps the time is now approaching when fashionable impatience with Frazer will give place to a sober estimate of his contribution to comparative religion in its anthropological aspect. He may then prove to have been greater rather than smaller than we thought."
Ciorti, 1998: 155-182 ("Wittgenstein on making homeopathic magic clear"); quoted sentence on p. 156.