The Recognition of Kinship Terminologies As Formal Systems

We now know what kinship terminologies are and what their function is in kinship systems, even though this knowledge is not yet widespread. Every social system consists of a set of organizations built up interactively by the use of specific idea systems: governmental systems are systems of organizations built up by the use of governmental ideas, military systems by the use of military ideas, economic systems by the use of economic ideas, and so on, including kinship systems by the use of kinship ideas. These social idea systems are not preeminently nomenclatures per se, but are associated with distinctive nomenclatures, just in the way that geometry is not a nomenclature but is associated with a nomenclature. For kinship, the core of the nomenclature has mainly been encountered and studied under the heading of “kinship terminologies.” The ideas associated with them are the ideas that make up their definitions. These are highly systematic and form powerfully generative conceptual calculi. This paper describes how this recognition has emerged from earlier, quite different, formulations