The Uses of Formal Analysis re Cognitive and Social Issues

This essay addresses the power of formal analysis, and exemplifies some of the important issues that arise when we use formal analyses to address the substantive issues of kinship terminologies – and, through them, of category systems in general. These examples point to where a broad empirical understanding of kin terminologies can take us and indicate something of the potential import of kinship studies for our understanding of other cultural domains. The notions of ‘formal account’, ‘descriptive theory’ and ‘explanatory theory’ are considered, as is the role of explicitness and the question of what might constitute the (or an) ‘explanation’ of a terminology. The current status of kinship terminological analysis is evaluated.