English

On the canonical formula of C. Levi-Strauss

Category Theory 2007-05-23 v2 Logic

Abstract

The anthropologist Claude LeviStrauss has formulated a theory of the structure of myths using a formalism borrowed from mathematics, which has been difficult to interpret, and is somewhat controversial. Nevertheless, LeviStrauss's old school chum Andre Weil took his work seriously, and in this note I propose an interpretation of LeviStrauss's `canonical formula' in terms of an anti-automorphism of the quaternion group of order eight.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0306174,
  title  = {On the canonical formula of C. Levi-Strauss},
  author = {Jack Morava},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0306174},
  year   = {2007}
}

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