Levels of Explanation for Ideas of Impurity

Abstract

When trying to understand purity practices and conceptions of impurity, which often seem enigmatic, scholars construe “explanations” on very different levels and frequently do not distinguish clearly between cause and effect. In the present article, I seek to disentangle various levels or types of explanation, ranging from evolutionary and historical, through cognitive and social, to structuralist and symbolic. While many attempts to explain impurity look for origins, reasons, or at least backgrounds, others rather aim at the results, or functions, of various ideas and practices of purity. Some explanations focus on analogies and correspondences, even treating purity codes as object lessons or illustrations of beliefs. Several explanatory models are frequently used for claims at levels to which they do not belong. Special critique is directed against the misuse of functionalist, structuralist, and symbolic models beyond their validity at a certain level of reception, for arguing or implying more than they can actually accommodate. The usefulness and integration of biopsychological and cognitive linguistic models for solving certain key questions without imposing ideological superstructures is argued.