The mind and the faculties: the controversy over 'primitive mentality' andthe struggle for disciplinary space at the inter-war Sorbonne

This article deals with some aspects of the study of the mind between the 1 920s and 1940s at the University of Paris. Traditionally the domain of phil osophy, the study of the mind was encroached upon by other disciplines such as history of science, ethnology, sociology and psychology. These discipli nes all had weak institutional status and were struggling to constitute the mselves as autonomous. History of science did not as a rule reject its rela tionship with philosophy, whereas ethnology, sociology and psychology were constructing their identities by breaking away from philosophy. A discussio n about Levy-Bruhl's La mentalite primitive, hosted by the Societe Francais e de Philosophie in 1923, showed that the positions of philosophers, sociol ogists and psychologists about the questions posed by the book, namely the fixity and universality of the mind, were strictly linked with their views about the 'scientificity' of ethnology. A compromise between fixity and his torical transformation of the mind was put forward by Gaston Bachelard, who institutionally represented the discipline of history and philosophy of sc ience. This discipline was institutionally linked to ethnology, psychology and sociology, but, unlike them, had no claim to 'scientificity'. Bachelard realized this compromise by breaking the unity of the mind and by employin g an extra-institutional discipline: psychoanalysis. His freedom of choice corresponded with an increasingly weak institutional position for the disci pline of history and philosophy of science.