Introduction to the Science of Kinship

Humans organize systems of social ideas through structures of kinship. In Introduction to the Science of Kinship, Murray J. Leaf and Dwight Read describe what those ideas are, how they are used, and what this implies for the science of human social organization.

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In Introduction to the Science of Kinship, Murray J. Leaf and Dwight Read illustrate how humans organize systems of social ideas through structures of kinship and outline what this implies for the science of human social organization. Leaf and Read explain that every human society has a social organization that is associated with a distinct vocabulary, which correlates with a particular system of interrelated definitions of social roles and relations. These roles and relations have four specific logical properties: reciprocity, transitivity, boundedness, and imaginary spatial dimensionality. These properties allow individuals to use them in communication to create ongoing, agreed-upon, organizations. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and mathematics.