MIRROR FOR ANTHROPOLOGY: A CURTURAL ANALYSB OF THE STUDY OF MAN AND CULTURE Thesis far the Domes- ef Ph. D. MICHQGAN STATE UNIVERSITY 31L Ciyfie McCone 3961 FEES??? This is to certify that the thesis entitled MIRROR FOR ANTHROPOLOGY: A CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE STUDY OF MAN AND CULTURE presented by R. Clyde McCone has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degree in Sociology & Anthro- polosy C;%L2147Cégh%hlmqo Major professor Date July 31L 1961 0-169 LIBRARY Michigan State University A: ‘Q -41 A/K :so;~ l ‘n I‘ I 1 U s ABSTRACT l MIRROR FOR ANTHROPOLOGY: A CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE STUDY OF MAN AND CULTURE by R. Clyde McCone Mirror Egg Anthropology is an investigation of the discipline of anthropology in the framework of its own basic concept, culture. Anthropology is regardedl in this study as an intellectual subculture within the general culture complex of Western civilization-~and specifically of England and the United States. The method chosen for this analysis is an ethno- history of world view. The concept of world view is developed from Redfield's presentation of it in The ggfimitive'flggld EBQ.lE§ Transformations. Redfield's concept of world view has been interpreted and struc- tured in this study to consist of: l) a triad of cat- egories of things confronted--Man-Nature-God; and 2) a triad of confrontations--history-soience- Philosophy. The first triad is regarded as the onto- 10gical aspect of the world view and the second the methodological aspect. World view was further sharpened as an analytical tool by designating world viGW-eidos as the existential aspect and world 1 R. Clyde McCone 2 view-ethos as the normative aspect. By using the two world view triads, the ethnohistory of world view was traced in the perspective of three world view revolu- tions designated in this-study as l) the Greek trans- formation, 2) the revolution of science (17th century), and 5) the convolution of evolution (19th century). These three developments in world view outline the cul- tural foundations of anthropology in Western civiliza- tion. From.an investigation of the world views in- volved in the Greek, 17th century science, and the 19th century evolutionist postulates, there was deve10ped the heuristic hypothesis that there are basic logical incompatibilities between the world view of the evolu- tionist postulate and the world view of science upon which it was constructed. This heuristic hypothesis was used to briefly investigate the development of a century of anthropological thought and also to analyze the theoretical position of fOur modern anthropologists: A. L. Kroeber, Leslie White, Raymond Firth, and E. E. EVans-Pritchard. These four were chosen because of POIar differences in their positions. Sketching the outlines of the history of anthro- POIOgy, revealed an historical pattern of resPonses to the hypothesized incompatible elements in the world views involved. An investigation of the theoretical R. Clyde McCone 3 positions of the four selected anthropologists showed that the basic issues which their'positions represent, stem from contradictory elements between the world views of the evolutionist man-and-culture-inenature postulate and the Greek-scientific foundations upon which it was built. This study, by assuming a number of human uni-. versal categories, and by investigating some of the world views of anthr0pology in the greater cultural context of Western civilization, is suggestive of an anthropological approach to the differing and conflict- ing ideologies which are current in the moaern world. MIRROR FOR ANTHROPOLOGY: A CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE STUDY or MAN AND CULTURE & By QJ ‘0 _ Rf Clyde loCone A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Sociology and Anthropology 1961 i 7 we ,7 d. 2' g, ;:,.,. 1's g I - I r I t . ... .1; I/ (J V 1/2,: (6... ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wiShes to acknowledge a deep debt of gratitude and to express sincere appreciation to his major professor, Dr. Iwao Ishino, for his con- tinuing interest, challenging criticism, and con- structive advice through the months of research to the completion of this thesis. Also an acknowledgment of indebtedness is due Dr. C. P. Loomis whose warm letter of acceptance was an important factor in the author coming to Michigan State University, and who later encouraged him to do a theoretical thesis in anthropology, for his helpful suggestions, and for his role in securing financial research assistance. I also want to acknowledge the sacrifice my family have made, especially my wife, Angeline, who has assumed more than her share of moral and financial support over three years of undergraduate and six years of graduate study. During this time she has typed every term paper, my Master's Thesis, and now this Doctoral Dissertation. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I. II. III. IV. 'IN'ERODUCTION............... Justification of Study . . . . . . . . . Development of»Methodology . . . . . . . Limitations 0 O I O O O O O O O O O O O O FEE-ANTHROPOLOGY: THE GREEK TRANSFORMATION OFWORLDVIEWOOOOOOOOOOOOO World View-Eidos . . . . . . . . . . . . World View-Ethos o o e e o e e e e e 3" o PHOTO-ANTHROPOLOGY: THE REVOLUTION OF _ SCENCE O O O O C O O O O O C C C O O 0 World View.Eidos e e o o e o o e e o e 0 World View-Ethos e e e e e e e e e e e e BIRTH OF ANTHROPOLOGY: THE CONVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION O O O O O O O O O O O O C O 0 World View-Eidos o e c e e o e e e o e 0 World. View-Ethos e e e e e o o o e e o 0 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A CENTURY OF ANTHROPOLOGY . . . . . . . . The Evolutionists . . . . . . . . . . . . The Natural History Reaction: Franz Boas The Reaction of Natural Science: Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski . . . . iii PAGE 15 16 19 31 55 59 51 59 66 7O 75 75 81 9O CHAPTER Reaction of 20th Century Evolution: VI. VII. VIII. IX. White and Steward Recent Developments Continuation of Study" A. L. KROEBER . . . World ViewbEidos . World View-Ethos . Conclusion . . . . LESLIE WHITE . . . . World View-Eidos . World View-Ethos . Conclusion . . . . RAYMOND FIRTH . . . WOrld View-Eidos . World ViewaEtdos . Conclusion . . . . E. E. EVANS—PRITCHARD World View-Eidos . World ViewhEthos . Conclusion . . . . SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS substantive Conclusions . Methodological Conclusions iv 0.: PAGE 103 107 111 113 114 122 127 128 129 141 143 147 147 155 161 165 165 172 177 180 180 191 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE , PAGE 1. Ontological Aspect of the Primitive world View 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 181 2. Ontological Aspect of the Greek WOrld View 182 5. Ontological Aspect of the Evolutionist World View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 A. Methodological Aspect of the Primitive WorldViGW................185 5. Methodological Aspect of the Greek WOrld View 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 186 6. Methodological ASpect of the Evolutionist world View 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 188 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This dissertation is an investigation of the ‘tu1- tural and scientific foundations underlying the dis- cipline of anthropology. Whitehead (1956:18) expressed the need for every science to investigate the assumptions upon which it builds, "If science is not to degenerate into a medley of ad Egg hypotheses, it must become phil- osophical and must enter upon a thorough criticism of its own foundations." However valid this statement of Whitehead's may be, the author does not have the training to conduct a philo- sophical critique of the discipline of anthropology. This investigation rests rather upon the proposition that anthropology is in the unique position of possessing cer- tain tools by which to study its own foundations. This characteristic anthropology shares with philOSOphy. Dil- they said of philosophy, "We must make philosophy itself an object of philosophical study" (as quoted in Bidney 1949:490). Dilthey continues by making a statement that indicates that the anthropological concept of culture may be important in investigating the foundations of 1 philosophy (Loc. citr): Thus from all the enormous labour of the metaphysical mind there remains the historical consciousness, which repeats that labour in itself and so experiences in it the unscrutable depths of the world. Bateson (1959:294) also recognizes the interdisciplinary connections between anthrOpology and philosophy and other fields: It seems to me that a science has dignity and value in- sofar as it contributes to the next more abstract corpus of insights which lie behind it. The value of anthropology, in my estimation, lies in its contribu- tion to general biological theory, to ethics, and to epistemology. If the anthropological concept-of culture is relevant to an investigation of philosophy, it should be useful also in analyzing the philosophical foundations of anthrOpOlogy itself. The following considerations may suggest the rel- evance which the culture concept has for an analysis of the basic postulates of anthrOpology: l. A central aspect of every culture is its assump- tions regarding the nature of man and of his universe. 2. All of the approaches to knowledge (and cultural anthropoldgy is a system of knowledge) have basic assumptions about the observer, the observed uni- verse, and the relations between them. 5. Science is a specialized approach to knowledge developed in the culture of Western civilization which has specific assumptions about the observer, 3 his observed universe, and his relation to it. (Most cultural anthropologists regard their dis- cipline as a science.) It is the intention of this dissertation, as Herskovits once suggested, to turn the spotlight of an- thropological theory on the development of the discipline of anthrOpology. (See Herskovits 1960:561) In this study anthropology is considered as an intellectual sub- culture of Western civilization. Its historical roots are sketched as well as a century of its development, finally coming to focus on four modern anthropologists: A. L. Kroeber, Leslie White, Raymond Firth, and E. E. mans-Pritchard . 1 In so far as these-fouranthropolo- gists represent a number of polar positions in anthropol- ogy, they provide one framework against which the field of anthropology may be viewed. The immortalized Scottish poet expressed a need for an individualistic intra-cultural mirror saying: 0 wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us: It wad frae mony a blunder free us, And foolish notion: Somewhat in contrast, this study is a search for an inter- cultural mirror for a discipline and -- by a rhyme ruin- ing paraphrase of Burns -- "some Pow'r the giftie gie us, to see oursels as we see ithers." 4 JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY Over twenty years ago Kluckhohn (1959:555, 543) suggestedthe need for a cultural analysis of the postu- late foundation of anthropology: There is great need, I feel sure, for constant crit- ical re-examination of the postulates basic to the several aspects of anthropological studies. There- fore, it seems justifiable that some anthropOlogists should devote some part of their research time budgets to an intensive study of these theoretical approaches and their relations to the wider horizons of thought. ... The role of ideological complexes in the formation . of anthropological theories seems to me to have;been (to varying degrees) neglected in almost all of the discussions of anthropological theory—which have been published thus far. An anthropological approach howa ever, to anthrOpological theories wouldiseem'to con- sist— recisel in the attempt to see anthrOpOIOgicaI tEeoers IE EH ebroad'framework Of cultural ers ec- tive. ... If wouId seem FEE? anEEEOpoIogiEPs Hive Been insufficiently aware of the dominance which has been exercised over its theoretical conceptions by certain sets of postulates which seldom enter into the explicit discussion of anthropological theory. The "anthropological approach to anthropological theories" defines the perspective within which this study is con- ducted. f The discipline of anthrOpology, with focus on cul- tural anthropology, is herein considered as an intellec- tual sub-culture within Western civilization, in terms of its basic postulates and theory. The validity of so con- sidering anthropology is recognized by anthropologists and by sociologists of knowledge. Redfield (1955c:ix) dbserves, "Anthr0pology, as a body of methods and intel- lectual interests, is itself a heritage..." From a 5 sociological point of view Stark (1958:51, 52) regards a professional discipline as an "internal sub-system” with- in the "external system" of society which.develOps "cul- tures, as well as habits and norms of action etc." Bateson (1959:296) expresses the interrelations between the subculture of anthropology and the greater cultural context of which it is a parts Our theories are themselves products of complex inter- active processes, resultants of our interactions with other scientists, with philOSOphers, and with the multicultural world in which.we live. DEVELOPMENT OF METHODOLOGY Outline of Approach The methodology of the studyhinges on the selec- tion, develOpmentand use of an anthropological tool for the study of anthropology. The tool selected is an ethno- history of world view. An ethnohistory provides a per- spective from which an anthropologist may step aside from his present involvement in his discipline and thereby get some objective estimation of his own intellectual founda- tions. History, as a discipline, shares with science a common value which is an objective attitude toward events. History, as here conceived, follows the distinctions made by Ernst Cassirer (1955:225-226): History does not aim to disclose a former state of the physical world but rather a former stage of human life and culture. ... History cannot predict the events to come; it can only interpret the past... a new under- 'standing of the past gives us at the same time a new Rage gaziassseagitsaa saw an An ethnohistory may include world view, technological traits, social structure, language, and other aspects of a culture as they have persisted or changed over time. However, in this study ethnohistory is concerned only with world view. ‘World view is a conceptual tool of the anthropolo- gist not unrelated totheconcept of culture. Redfield (1955:85, 86) makes the distinction that, "If 'culture' suggests the way a people look to ananthropologist, 'world view4 suggests how everything looks to a people...“ Yet the world view is an important part of the culture which the anthrOpologist ”sees“ and describes. Culture may be considered as the more inclusive concept. In this sense it includes world view; social organization, tech- nology, language, and other aspects of a way of life. Both concepts are involved in the problem of cross cul- tural communication and therefore the author does not con- ceive the difference of perspective between them to be as sharp as does Redfield. Since the present author views culture in much the same sense as does Paul Bohannan, wmrld view becomes a very central aspect of it. The fol- lowing statement by Bohannan.makes clear this conceptual relationship (1959:294): ... the heart of anthropology remains its concern with the ideas of people and (when we include archeology and museology) with the tangible results of these 7 ideas, or tools and materials by which they are given expression--what we sum up as "culture." Nevertheless, world view does make it possible to focus on the world as "seen" and "felt" by a people or an individ- ual, while the perspective of history is designed to give this subjective cultural phenomenon an objective or crit- ical treatment. Anthropologists are professionally interested in the world view~of other peoples. They are also aware of the problem of describing and interpreting the world views of tribal cultures to an audience whose world views are those of Western civilization. Bohannan (Loc. cit.) outlines a scheme whereby the anthropologist may take into account the world views of Western civilization as well as those of primitive cultures: This particular form of translation is the anthropol- ogist's chief problem. He must explain alien concepts in English without assimilating them to western con- cepts which would destroy them. The task can be achieved in only one way: erection of an "analytical system” -- a "theory," ... by means of which the Anglo- American or Western notions can be compared with the exotic ones in such a way that neither of them loses its individualizing traits... The anthropologist must thus deveIOp a specialized world view by which he may describe and interpret the world views of tribal cultures for those sharing the world view of Western civilization. The author in dealing with the world views of anthrOpologists, while not involved in the iproblem.of cross cultural communication, since he is 8 addressing himself to anthropologists, must also develOp and express a world view -- a still more limited or per- sonal world view; As the author "looks out upon“ the world views of the Specialists of world views, he is try— ing to comprehend and develop some working adjustment to the sub-culture of anthropology that has become his own immediate intellectual environment.2 The concept of world view employed throughout this dissertation is the analytical tool as developed by Red- field in gas Primitive m ‘_a_1__n_d Hg Transformations} As defined by Redfield (1955;:88) world view encompasses both the aspect of the cognitive as well as the affective and normative. The distinction between existential be- lief and attitudes is made in two questions to be asked of world views, "(1) What does man confront? and (2) What is the relation he sees between himself and that which is confronted?" (Redfield 1955:96). Ethos is perceived as a concept very similar to that of world view but is dis- tinguished in that it "is a conception in which the norm- ative aspect of human experience is in advance given priority..." (Redfield 1955a:86). Yet ethos is included in world view. "World view can be seen as a character- istic attitude of obligation toward that which.man finds in his universe" (Redfield 1955:99). Throughout this study the distinction between the reality outhOk and the affective-normative outlook shall be conceptualized under 9 the terms world view-sides and world viewhethos. Eidos and ethos are used only in conjunction with the term ‘wcrld view and that to make an analytical distinction within it. Werld view, while having many aspects shared _ throughout the culture, has a certain individualistic character. Furthermore, as Radin has emphasized, there are some individuals who are more reflective than others and give more attention to constructing some coherent system from their world view. The result is a cosmology. Redfield (1953:89, 88) observes "...the gap between the ordinary manfs world view and the scientist's cosmology 13 very great indeed," and also "Ethnology is itself a building of world views into cosmologies." As the world viewbeidos is constructed and presented by the writer, it then becomes a cosmology. Redfield extends the analytical character of world view by observing that essentially it is a product of a human universal which G. H. Mead conceptualized in terms of the I, Me, and Generalized Other. Also, all people in looking out on the world make some basic distinctions. The first is between that which is man and that which is not man. Of that which is man, one's own group is dis- tinguished from.not one's own group. Within the Not-man, basic distinctions are made between visible and invisible 10 entities or beings. World vieWbeidos provides an analytical tool dis- tinguishing between different world views, focusing at- tention on two sets of relationships. The first'is re- , garding how Man, Nature, and God4 are defined, distin- guished or related (TQEQ3104). God, as here used by Red-, field, is merelya term of western civilization used to designate an area found in all world views which is de- voted to one category of the Not-man; It is acategory variously differentiated from the second category of the Notbman'called Nature, as being-either*invisible, spirit- ual, or unexplainable. These qualities may or may not be conceptualized in terms of a personal being or beings.5 The second set of confrontations in his world view and which shall later—be shown to have crucial inter- relations, are history, existing order, and the rationale or locus of orderliness (EQiQ: 87, 100, 101). In Western civilization these have formed three systems commonly called history, science, andphilosophy. The first triad may be called the ontological aspect of the world view while the second is primarily'methodological and may or may not correlate with the ontological distinctions. For the world viewbethos, Redfield (g2;g:100) suggests "three distinguishable attitudes toward the Not- man: to maintain it, to obey it, or to act upon it."“ Varying emphasis may be placed upon these. World ll- viewbethos also includes attitudes°toward Man. This is indicated in his treatment of the development of ethical judgements The primitive is pictured as very'much a cap- tive of his cultural order while in western civilization he regards Man as consciously having the opportunity and moral reaponsibility-of cultural change in his hands. Temporal and Spacial orientation involve'both the sides and ethos aspects-of the world view’(;21d:86): World view can hardly be conceived without some dimen- sion of time, some idea of past and future; and the phrase is large enough and loose enough to evoke also the emotional "set“ of a people, their diaposition to be active, or contemplative or resigned, to feel them- selves distinct from what is 'out there,‘ or to iden- tify themselves closely with the rest of the cosmos. The ways in which Man, Nature, and God are defined and related; the ways in which history, science, and philosophy are perceived and related; and the attitude with which the world is confronted shall provide the fulcrum of the analysis of anthropology and‘its cultural foundations in Western civilization. While the events of history may not be subject to confirmation by reproduction in a laboratory, still they are accessible to critical review by many observers and may receive a degree of confirmation by "reconstruction." That is, a number of independent scholars when arriving at similar reconstructions -- or at least not contra- dictory -- may by their consensus establish the factual- 1ty of historical events. Three events in the history 12 of the world view of Western man have been chosen to pro- vide the structure of the historical perspective. These “events“ —- so conceived -- appear to enjoy a firm con- sensus'in-modern thought. Furthermore, each event is recognized as‘a revolution in the-manner of man's thought, attitude, and behavior. The first of these events-is the transformation from the world view of myth to that of Greek civilization; The second event is the revolution of science centering around Galileo but en- compassing Copernicus, Kepler, Harvey, Newton and many others. The third climactic event focused in.Darwin, Tylor, Morgan and others, which'conceived of man and his culture as natural phenomena in an evolutionary frame- work. That these-events are focal climaxes in the cul- tural history of Western man is witnessed to by scholars of many disciplines (See Russell 1945, Frankfort 1949, Singer 1959, Redfield 1953. Simpson 1960, Butterfield 1951, Cassirer 1955. Stark 1958). Assumptions The use of world view as an analytical concept rests upon a number of assumptions. These are here made explicit to aid the reader in following the argument of the thesis: 1. "Everybody looks out on a world from a vieWpoint which he identifies with that being toward which, alone, he finds himself looking when he looks 15 inW' " (Redfield 1955:91). 2. All peoples, as they look out upon the external world, have a common desire “to come to terms with reality, to live in an ordered universe..." (Cassirer 1955:17). 5. The "ordered universe" or world view of all peoples is historically produced in the process of social interaction which continues over the time dimension of succeeding generations. 4. The world view as an ideological or belief-value system may be analytically considered apart from behavior or the action system. The study there- fore is not concerned with behavioral elements but rather with the logical elements of what men say. 5. Since the world view is the product of an histor- ical process and is an integral element of social interaction, it is regarded as having some cons tinuity over time. LlMITATIONS Only by recognizing and accepting the following limitations has the author presumed to attempt an investi- gation of the discipline of anthropology. The study is not a philosophical or normative critique of the assumptions of anthropology but rather 14 treats these assumptions as cultural phenomena. It is not designed as an exhaustive history of the discipline of anthropology but attempts the construction of a frame- work of its develOpment centering on the develOpment of its postulate foundatiOns expressed in its world views, and that chiefly in England and America. The study selects four recent anthropologists as representative of a limited-number of polar positions, whose works may structure a perspective for the works of the many not mentioned in this study, The study does not attempt an exposition of the ethnographic works of the four anthrOpologists chosen but focuses only on their theoretical works, and then chiefly upon the postulate underpinnings of these theoretical works. The study is not concerned with any of the psycho- logical dimensions of choice relative to the positions taken by the four selected anthrOpologists. Nor is the important sociological dimension of the social structure included in this more strictly cultural investigation. 1. 5. 4. 5. NOTES The author is currently engaged in a research.project in.which the theoretical positions of A. L. Kroeber, Leslie White, and Raymond Firth are being analyzed in the framework of the Processually Articulated Struc- tural Model of C. P. Loomis. This model, called the PAS Model may be found in C. P. Loomis, Social Elstems: E83 8 on Their Persistence and Chan e. Prince on: 5. gen Nostrifid Company, In 7'19 The aspect of the author's own world view was one which his major professor, Dr. Iwao Ishino, persis- tently kept before hhm. A research paper-comparing the positions.of A. L. Kroeber, Robert Redfield, and Leslie White, done in a special readings course directed by Dr. Richard Adams, laid the groundwork for the idea of a compar- ative study of anthropologists. Man, Nature, and God are capitalized when they call special attention to Redfield's categories. The selection of Redfield's concept of world view no doubt reflects the interest, due to his theological training, which the author brings to this study.' 15 CHAPTER II FEE-ANTHROPOLOGY: THE GREEK TRANSFORMATION OF WORLD VIEW Culture, by definition, is diachronic phenomena. Culture without a past is hardly conceivable.. The problem then arises in a concern with cultural phe- nomena of how far into the past shall the investigator's interest lead him. One logical choice that is Open to him is that he must either concern himself with the or- igins of culture itself or he must settle on some shorter perspective in terms of a particular culture or group of cultures. Even if the latter is chosen, how far into the history of its cultural development he will go is a decision that can be determined only by the re- searcher‘s interest or problem. In considering anthropology as an intellectual, sub-cultural development of Western Civilization Sai‘ concern is limited to the beginnings of Western Civil- ization. This is not to say that this civilization, which to a large degree took shape on the Ionian Penin- sula in the Aegean Sea, was not heavily indebted to its predecessors in Crete, Egypt, and Babylon. What is sig- nificant to the problem at hand is that fundamental l6 17 cultural differences were developed here among these Greek people which perceptibly distinguish Western Civilization from both Eastern Civilization and from the many primitive cultures. And further, that anthropology owes its origins to these unique elements in Western Civ- ilization. These fundamental differences and 'unique elements' are to be found in their world view. Archeological research has done much to recon- struct the history of the events of early Greece. Many specific details remain unknown; however, the main out- lines are quite clear. The general process was one of successive waves of migration from the north, each in its turn suffering cultural disorganization in its con- tacts with Minoan and Mycenaean civilization; and each in its turn thus.producing new cultural characteristics (See Brinton 1950:51 and Russell 1945:?). Another im- portant acculturation factor was the extensive sea born contacts with Egypt and with the outer reaches of the Persian Empire. The eventual result of centuries of change was a number of small city states that produced a cultural legacy which sets off Western Civilization from the rest of the world. Later the conquest of Philip of Macedon served to unite the people of this culture into a common political unit. The conquests of his son, Alexander, resulted in the 'Helenization' of the former civilizations south and east of Greece. Upon his death, 18 Alexander's empire soon fell apart but the intellectual legacy of the Greeks has been passed down through time, despite the rise and fall of emperors and empires. Central to the cultural distinction produced by the early Greeks was a way of relating themselves to their world--essentially a way of thinking-- Crane Brin- ton (l950:52) calls it "objective reasoning". Or as Bid- ney (1949:411) observes: What is significant in the case of historical Greek society is that the appeal against tradition was made in the name of human reason and logic rather than in the name of the Gods. Characteristic of the Greek manner of thought is the sharp dichotomy between observer and observed in the knowing process--a subject—object relationship as being fundamental to all understanding. The forefathers of the Greeks had been tradition bound by an identity with their total world in the tight web of their cultural myths. In the encompassing world view of myth man is bound to nature with a subjective identity (Cassirer 1955:544). He is bound to his past by a time perspective that fuses together past, present, and future (Cassirer 1955:219; McCone 1956). and he is bound within his own system of cultural knowledge by an uncritical, uncon- scious and emotional acceptance of its premises (Cassirer 1955:52). The tribal myths had been.shattered as migratory waves of their bearers had washed up on the 19 shores of expanding civilizations. Yet, out of succeed- ing levels of the debris of myth controlled cultures rose a new way of life destined for world hegemony for millenniums to come. There arose a new world view in which there was a fundamental detachment of the viewer. The sentiment based substratum of myth had broken (Cassirer 1955:108). These 'culture pioneers' shared with their forefathers--whoever they were the same desire of human nature to come to termS' with reality, to live in an ordered universe, and to overcome the chaotic state in wnich things and thoughts have not yet assumed a definite shape and structure (Cassirer 1955:16, 17). This desire, however, was to be fulfilled in a radically different manner. A manner that was to have seemingly unlimited avenues and degrees of fulfillment, nor was it to respect geographic, racial or social boundaries in its persistent world conquest. WORLD VIEWeEIDOS Man-Nature-God . In The Primitive World and Its Transformations, Redfield has sketched the transformation of a mythical world view to that developed by the early Greeks. Be- ginning with the primitive he states (Redfield 1955:104): If later world views might be compared with ref- erence to a triangle of these three conceptions--~ Man, Nature, God--the primary world view was one in which the triangle itself was not very apparent. 20 This unitary character of the cosmos in the case of the folk peoples is recognized on the one hand when it is said that the world of the folk is per- 'vaded with sacredness. On the other hand, it is recognized when it is said that the world of the folk is personal. The two ideas, put together, refer to the hardly separable interpenetration of Man, Nature, and God in that which the pre- civilized man confronted. This mutual involvement of Man, Nature and God as "looked out upon" of course takes in the viewer himself. Thus, referring to the observations of the Frankforts, Red- field (Ibid:105) says that: In this primitive world view the thing confronted is unique, ... it is known directly inarticulately and without detachment... This primary indistinc- tion of personal, natural, and sacred qualities is the first characteristic to be asserted of the world view of primitive man. Directly related to this first characteristic is the sec- ond, - the universe is a moral order. The radical transformation of the mythical world view is regarded as the combined achievement of the Hebrews and the Greeks (Ibid:102): The radical achievement of the Hebrews in putting God entirely outside of the physical universe and attaching all value to God is recognized as an immense and unique achievement. And the fresh beginning of Greek science in conceiving a universe in which order was immanent without any reference to God at all is also recognized as exceptional and extraordinary. ' Cassirer points out, however, that "... nature is, after all, only the periphery of the mythical world; it is not its center." Its real center is found in its 21 gods. Two opposite forces in Greek philosophy, Hera- clitus' philosophy of "Being" and the elastic philosophy of "Becoming" had rid nature of its gods. Xenophanes of the elastic school "insisted that a plurality of gods is inconceivable and contradictory.". The result was a conception of nature in which deity did not even provide a rationale for order, and that was also free from all "mythical and anthropomorphic thought." But as Cassirer (1955:65) emphasizes: ... all these victories of rational thought remained precarious and uncertain so long as myth.was still in undisputed possession of its firmest stronghold. Myth was not really defeated so long as it had full sway over the human world and dominated man's thoughts and feelings about his own nature and destiny. The 'de-mything' of nature was but the first step in producing the world view of the Greeks. It paved the way_for the attack on the mythical conception of history by Herodotus and Thucydides and development’of political philosophy or the exercise of conscious control of the social order. As expressed by Cassirer (Igigzél, 62), "The new conception of nature became the common ground for a new conception of man's individual and social life." Opposing philosophical schools-~Socrates and the sophists --agreed that "a rational theory of human nature was a desideratum of any philosophic theory." But while the sophists opposed the myths with rational explanations, Socrates opposed it with the method of self examination. 22 Human nature must be seen critically in an "ethical light" rather than in the submerging light of myth. The Greeks thus came to confront a nature distinct from supernature, possessing its own inherent principle of order. Their origins were not the historical origins of myths. They did not even look for an 'origin‘ in the sense of an ini- tial condition which was superceded by subsequent states of being. The Ionians asked for an immanent and lasting ground of existence. The Greek (343(6 )means origin, not as 'beginning' but as 'sustaining principle' or 'first cause' (Frankfort 1959:251). God was separated from both man and nature so that he was not-a first cause to nature; to man he was significantly distant, irrele- vant and unknown. That these philosophical cosmologies were far in advance of the world view ofthe 'Greek on the street' is communicated to us through the apostle Paul's observation made in his sermon to the philosOphers- on Mars Hill. In this classic utterance he needled the philosophers by pointing out the religiousness of the people of Athens as evidenced by their extensive idolatry and concern about the gods (Bible: Acts, Chapter 17). In terms of Redfield's triad of’ManaNature-God, Man was confronted by the philosophers as distinct from Nature andeod, the understanding of which was the foun- dation of all knowledge. To turn again to Cassirer (1955:66) their goal was to "humanize philosophy, to 23 turn cosmogony and ontology into anthropology..." History-Philosophy:Science From the fundamental observer-observed detache ment and the concomitant ManeNature-God separation in the world view, the Greeks came to segregate their con- frontations of different aspects of their world. As a result, the world view came to be composed of fourquite distinct intellectual streams, each to a large degree Greek innovations. Bertrand Russell (l945:5) refers to each one of these in a single sentence: They (the Greeks) invented mathematics and science and philosophy; they first wrote history*as opposed to mere annals; they speculated freely about the nature of the world and the ends of life, without being bound in the fetters of any inherited ortho- doxy. The critical self consciousness which had a dynamic birth here in the area of the Aegean was focused on man's phys- ical environment, upon his own social order, upon his own knowledge and thought processes, and upon past human experience. What had previously been undifferentiated and unconsciously accepted in myth (See Schelling as re- ferred to in Cassirer 1955:4, 5) now became objects of critical concern and serious questioning. It is not here being presumed that Russell con- ceives each one of these--science, philosophy, mathem- atics or abstract systems of conceptualization, and 24 history as culturally autonomous, or conflicting systems of thought. On the contrary it is apparent that each took shape somewhat concurrently within a common cul- tural milieu. Still, despite the common cultural inter- relations and shared cultural characteristics which they might have, certain analytical differences in the concern of each justify their being spoken of as distinct streams of cultural innovation. If world view is the meaningful order which man in society constructs from and for the events of his en- vironment, then something may be said for each of these Greek innovations as a system of meaning constructions. Science developed as a method of interpreting the events of a fixed order, as the order of the physical universe was conceived. History became an approach to the past events of a changing order, the order of human exper- ience. PhilOBOphy was not concerned directly with events as such, but rather with problems of the origins, nature, and ends, of the orders in which events take ‘ (and took) place. This includes both the order of phys- ical nature and of socio-cultural man. It seems to this author that mathematics, dealing as it does with an ab- stract system of numerical symbols and space-time cat- egories, may be regarded as a manner of confronting the events of the mind. However in the primitive societies with mythical culture these events are at least held in 25 abeyance, they are not 'there' to require interpenetra- tion or explanation. Thus in the Greek world view these 'events' will not be considered in the same ontological sense as those of history and science. Russell (l945:3) observes that philosOphy and science were born together as expressed in the works of Thales of Miletus (624-565 B.C.). It will be remembered that Thales not only predicted the eclipse in 858 B.C. but he was also concerned with the philosophical ques- tion of the nature of material reality. His answer was water. Those of the Milesian school who followed Thales:- Anaximander and Anaximenes, though scientists, also spec- ulated on the essential nature of material reality. Anaximenes held that it was to be found in the air. Democritus who was not of the Milesian school, rather than speculating about the nature of reality postulated merely that everything was composed of physically indi- visible units called atoms. The problems of philosophy were further disposed of when he simply denied the ex- istence of the mind as a separate entity. Democritus was contemporary with Socrates. Socrates was as influential in divorcing philosophy from science as Democritus was in divorcing science from philosophy. Singer speaks of Soc- rates as "associated with a great intellectual revolution" and quotes his pupil Xenophon as saying of him (Singer 1959:36)= 26 ... as for learning the courses of the stars, oc- cupying oneself with the planets or inquiring about their distance from the earth or about their orbits or the causes of their movements, to all these he strongly objected as a waste of time. He dwelt on the contradictions and conflicting Opinions of the physical philosophers... and, in fine, he held that speculators on the universe and on the laws of the heavenly bodies were hardly better than madman. . Mathematics was conceived as a section of man's confrontation of his world by the Greeks. Numbers "were held to have a real separate existence outside our minds" (Ibid:25). There was also a "consciousness of a corres- pondence between the workings of our minds and the work- ings of nature...“ (Loc. cit.). That mathematics--in the sense we are using ito-should have its birth in psychic association with religion rather than empirical science may seem strange to the modern mind, but this is the case. Of Pythagoras, Russell states, ”Mathematics, in the sense of demonstrative deductive argument, begins with him, and in him is intimately connected with a peculiar form of mysticism." He goes on to characterize Pythagoras "as a combination of Einstein and Mrs. Eddy" (Russell 1945:28, 31). In accounting for the reasonableness of what super- ficially appears to be a strange intellectual combination, Russell makes some very insightful observations which will serve to illuminate the distinction which is here made in setting an abstract system of conceptualization apart from science, philosophy and history as a distinct 2? intellectual stream. To quote at length (Ibid:57): Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as in a super-sensible intelligible world. Geometry deals with exact circles, but no sensible object is exactl circular... This suggests the view that ill exact reasoning applies to ideal as op- posed to sensible objects; it is natural to go further, and to argue that thought is nobler than those of sense perception. Mystical doctrines as to the relation of time to eternity are also rein- forced by pure mathematics, for-mathematical ob- jects, such as numbers, if real at all, are eternal and not in time. Such eternal objects can be con- ceived as God's thoughts. Quite in contrast to "religious, mystical and other worldly” Pythagoras, Herodotus, the father of history, perhaps would find more attitudes in common with the sci- entist. That is, he was "empirical, rationalistic, and interested in acquiring knowledge of a diversity of facts! These facts were however not of the present order of the material world but of the course of past events which people had experienced. History--so named by the Greeks who developed it (16:0?[393 means' literally inquiry or investigation, so radically Opposed to the myth which it supplanted. The 'cultural' ground work was prepared for Herodotus: Xenophanes, the philosopher, who had denounced the myths of Homer and Hesiod because such miraculous occurrences are impossible in the face of the re - ularity of the laws of nature (Shotwell l959:l68§. The status of philOSOphy in its differentiation from history and science and from the world view of myth deserves further elucidation. The world view of Western 28 Civilization as traced here seems to focus around or stem from two interrelated aspects. First, there is a funda- mental detachment of man within the world view itself and second, there is a parallel detachment of the individual as he looks out upon the world. These basic characteris- tics lead to a break in the uncritical acceptance of tra- dition and at the same time set the stage for a number of choices and decisions to be made in the process of criti- cal speculation which is necessary to build a coherent cosmology. In the mythical world view the ontological premises and the ultimate values are implicit and are accepted unoritically. As expressed by the Frankforts (1999:251): 1 A cosmogonic myth is beyond discussion. It describes a sequence of events, which one can either accept or reject. ... myth claims recognition by the faithful, not justification before the critical. The philosophy of myth is not differentiated from events. The critical detachment of the Greeks was in terms of their own knowledge as well as their own history. Hence, philosophy became for them a critical concern with their own world view and their cosmologies were more than spec- ulating on the basis of world view, it became rather a conscious and critical construction of world view. In this sense philosophy truly had its origins with the Greeks, though the Hebrews developed a certain detachment without the speculative approach. The basic detachment in 29 the world view of the Greeks leaves the individual with a number of alternative premises between which he must make a critical choice. Out of the basic detachment in the Greek world view have developed at least three sets of philosophical positions to be critically accepted or rejected, as op- posed to the uncritical acceptance of primitive myth. With respect to the ontological_character of the observed world three alternative assumptions were presented, com- monly called Mind, Matter, and Duelist. With respect to the relationship of knowledge to Observed reality three categories of assumptions or epistemological postulates have developed. The realist postulates assume that real- ity is found in universals; the nominalist that reality is found in the concrete particular and that classs terms are but classifying names. Conceptualism is a third and intermediate postulate which holds that universals are concepts which exist in the mind and express real simi- larities to the things themselves. A third set of as- sumptions may be called methodological postulates in-as- much as they address themselves to the question, "How is the observed related to the observer through.knowledge?" Of these the intuitionist postulates focus on the activity of the mind in unlocking the secrets of the observed world. On the other hand, for the empiricist postulates, the mind is more like a blank plate upon which the 30 empirical world makes its sensory impressions. A third ; postulate category is that of idealism which holds that the mind of the observed and the object hold a position of entire dependence on each other as "warp and woof." These critical decision areas are the cultural heritage of the Greek world view. Upon these postulates, criti- cally chosen, rather than traditionally and unconsciously received have been constructed the cosmologies of western philosophers. (The fundamental detachment of man as ob- server from.the observed world has been both the fulcrum which gave rise to the intellectual advance of Western Civilization as it has been the focus about which the critical issues have been structured for its cosmology builders. This brief sketch of some of the metaphysical postulate areas serves to emphasize the fact that phil- osophy was structured by the Greeks around basic axes of assumption and choice relative to the interpretation of the "orders” which man constructs out of and for the events which he observes. Modern anthropology owes much to the early Greek origins of each of the four cultural streams. The sci- entific approach to phenomena, abstract systems of con- ceptualization, a critical concern with one's own society, knowledge and history all are essential prerequisites to the development of a cross cultural understanding of the human reality. In fact, Singer, the historian of science, 51 hails Herodotus as the father of anthropology as he is also the father of history (Singer 1959:22). With this Kroeber, the anthropologist, concurs (1948:15): Herodotus, the 'father of history,’ devoted half of his nine books to pure ethnology. ... until nearly two thousand years after these ancients, in neither chemistry nor geology nor biology was so serious an interest developed as in anthropology. WORLD VIEW‘ETHOS The Greek transformation is manifest in the world view-ethos also. In the world of myth the attitude with which man confronteleot-man was one of "placation or appeal or coercion... The obligation is felt to do what falls to one in maintaining the whole of which man is a part" (Redfield 1955:106). In contrast, the Greek atti- tude toward Nature was one of control, mastery and exploi- tation. No doubt the "city states” as they developed among the Greek may be regarded as a form of social con- trol--a degree of mastery and regulation of Man.by man. This possibility was not Open to primitive man. He was within a self regulating system of Man-Nature-God. In civilizations prior to the Greeks only by a claim to a certain agency of God could man exercise control over fellowman. Here then, among the Greeks in their societal self control were laid the foundations of modern democ- racy. In most of the Greek cosmologies God was far re- moved. It would seem that the Greeks were intent on 52 focusing their cosmologies on Nature and Man and hence in the world vieweethos, God was regarded with indifference and as lacking significance. Related to both world viewhethos and world view- eidos is the new temporal orientation which emerged when history was extraced from myth. _In fact Cassirer sug- gests that myth had provided the answer to primitive man's question about the origins of things, about the physical world and about his social world. In other words, phil- osophy, science and history were all bound together in myth. The result is a time perspective radically differ- ent from—that bequeathed to western man by the Greeks. Cassirer (1955:219) describes the time perSpective of mythas follows: The past, present, and future are still tied up to- gether; they form an undifferentiated unity—and an indiscriminate whole. Mythical time has no definite structure; it is still an "eternal time." From the point of view of the mythical consciousness the past has.never passed away; it is always here and now. When.man begins to unravel the complex web of the mythical imagination he feels himself transported into a new world; he begins to form a new concept of truth. The emergence of history from myth, along with sci- ence and philosoPhy, and their detachment from each other produced a new time perspective. History, confined to. the available facts of the past, left the problems of or- igins to philosophy and time became a limited measureable reality. As history was developed by Herodotus and 53 Thycydides, time was structured by the substantiated events of a not too distant past. As historians, their concern was not with a "world of physical objects but a symbolic universe--a world of symbols." From this uni- verse so limited in time the orientation of timevdevel- oped. How different from the primitive is the manner [ in which past, present, and future are related in thel‘ Greek view. History cannot predict the events to come; it can only interpret the past... a new understanding of the past gives us at the same time a new prospect of the future, which in turn becomes an impulse to intellectual and social life (Cassirer 1953: 225, 226). It is not strange that the science and history of the Greeks shared a common time perspective as they emerged from the bonds of myth. In the primitive world view of eternal existence the unmeasureable past defined reality and value, and gave meaning to the world of ex- perience. The Milesian founders of science were to con- sider the past in terms of the observable world in which they lived. It had to be then a past that was "in sight," within reach as it were of their powers of‘observation. Their time perspective was limited and measureable--if not measured (Cornford 1957:21): In the first place the Milesian proceed on tacit assumption which it never occurs to them to state, because they are taken over from poetical cosmogony ... The chief question they answer is: How did the present world order, with the disposition of the great elemental masses and the heavenly bodies, 54 come to exist as we now see it? Here at once it is assumed that the world had a beginning in time. The Ionians also asserted that it would some day come to an end, and be superceded by another world. The Greeks did not try to measure all of measureable time. This would have joined history and philosophy again. They did, however, live in a world with a limited or circum- scribed time perSpective. CHAPTER III PROTO-ANTHROPOLOGY: THE REVOLUTION OF SCIENCE The basic cultural elements of Greek civilization .found continuance in their Roman inheritors--but not a significant development of them. The Latin world was more practical minded and gave greater adherence to Stoic and Epicurian creeds. Hence, the beginnings of Greek science, history, philosophy and logico~mathematical knowledge did not flourish far beyond their original level. Singer (1951:105) explains: Thus, in place of knowledge accumulating progressively on the basis of a wide and far reaching theory we get under Stoicism,-either a type of exact but intellect- ually motiveless observation, or‘a rejection of all knowledge not of practical importance. The dogmatism of Epicurianism was even less favorable to scientific research... With the fall of the Roman Empire the influences of Greek civilization went into at least partial eclipse. It was preserved in a somewhat static sense by scholars or copyists in the Roman Catholic monasteries (Sarton 1960:58) and by the physical preservation of the written page itself. Arabic scholars did more to advance knows ledge than did those of the west. Yet it remained quite detached from the dynamic on going way of life of the 55 56 middle or "dark" ages. The culture of the feudal soci- eties within the 'Holy Roman Empire' was essentially a product of a continued and complex process of accultura- tion. Gaulic, Frankish, Teutonic and other tribes had first either come under the dominion of the Roman Empire or lived on its outermost boundaries. The breakdown in their tribal cultures produced the "barbarian” powers that eventually overran the empire itself. The, by now highly traditionalized, form of Christianity'which.had become the religion of the empire, proved to be an impor- tant factor in the acculturation process which followed. The result was the strongly traditionalized feudal system of the middle or "dark" ages. The rediscovery of the I primitive truths of Christianity led to the reformation and did much to challenge the hold of traditionalism on the minds of the people. It led also to the counter ref- ormation in the Roman Church. The rediscovery of the basic intellectual foundations of Greek civilization sparked the renaissance. Here the cultural heritage of a somewhat distant past as it came to life in the cultural milieu of feudal Europe found in it the soil, the environ- ment or cross fertilization which produced a tremendous growth and development--in fact it produced our modern "Western" culture. Whitehead isolates certain ingredients in this 'soil': a rising interest in mathematics, belief in a detailed order of nature and an unbridled rationalism 57 (Whitehead 1925:59). ‘The development of the four intel- lectual-streams observed in Greek civilization, flourished in this period and combined to lay the cultural founda- tions of anthropology. As séience led the way under Thales for the trans- formation from the world view of myth to the logos of the Greeks, so also the significant development of the Renaissance has been called by some the scientific rev- olution and by others the Galilean—Newton revolution (Singer-1959:4l8). The Renaissance was indeed-a rebirth of the Greek cultural heritage. It was a rebirth, however, that soon produced a revolution in world view. The change was not a transformation as from primitive mythos to Greek logos, but rather a radical development taking place on the foun- dations laid by the Greeks. The scientific revolution which took place within the historical scope of Coperni- cus, Galileo and Newton, Whitehead hails as "the greatest single intellectual success which mankind has achieved." This revolution along with the reformation to which it was related developed out of the rebirth of the Greek world view (Whitehead l925:9): The Reformation and the scientific movement were two aspects of the revolt which was the dominant intel- lectual movement of the later Renaissance. The appeal to the origins of Christianity, and Francis Bacon's appeal to efficient causes as against final causes, were two sides of one movement of thought. 38 It is the 'science' side of the thought coin that shall receive attention in this study. That science brought about a pervading revolution in world view is at- tested by other scholars (Butterfield l951:viii): Since it changed the character of men's habits and mental operations even in the conduct of the non- material sciences, while transforming the whole dia- gram of the physical universe and the very texture of human life itself, it looms so large as the real origin of the modern world and of the modern mental- ity that our customary periodization of EurOpean history has become an anachronism and an encumbrance. In observing the same historical phenomenon, Singer points to the ethos as well as the eidos character of the development. Regarding Galileo he speaks of "the initia- tion of a new attitude toward the objective universe" (Singer 1959:250) and further adds (Ibidx259): Galileo founded a new conception of the world--he almost founded a mood in which to regard it. In doing so he certainly affected the religion of all men who are able to accept or partake of his mood. In this chapter the character of the cosmology de- veloped in the scientific revolution shall be sketched. The revolution in world view shall be seen as scientific cosmology passed into a generalized world view and as further developments took place in the following three centuries. 59 WORLD VIEW-EIDOS Man-Nature-God The 17th century revolution in world view came about through a focus on nature. Nature was taken to be the physical universe. Whether nature encompassed all of reality depended upon the ontological postulate which was chosen--mind, matter, or a dualism; a choice imperative which was inherited from the Greeks. Newton perceived Nature apart from both.Man and God, in no wise "natural- izing' nor negating the latter by his focus upon nature. In whichever manner the relationship of Nature-Man—God was to be conceived relative to the postulates of knowe ledge the revolutionary change that was to take place in the concept of nature was to make its impact felt on the concept of Man and God and their interrelationships in the world view. The development of science then proved to be a revolutionary factor in the develOpment of world view. In the words of a philosOpher and historian (Russell 1945:525): Almost everything that distinguished the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth.century. It was chiefly in Aristotle that the Greek world view had been preserved by the theologians of the Roman Church. The basic distinction made between the heavens 40 and the earth was thought to have confirmation in the Scripture. Aristotle's concept of an unlimited universe was modified to fit a theologically acceptable position. Copernicus was one of the sparks which lit the rev- olutionary conflagration of change. The change from a geocentric universe to a heliocentric universe was a rad- ical development as well as having latent in it the chal- lenge to the whole Aristotlean system as it has been mod- ified by the church. Copernicus laid the foundation for doubting the basic distinction between celestial and ter- restrial mechanics. The removal of the idea of an outer sphere within which the universe existed, Opened the door to a concept of an infinite universe. Entering through this door led Bruno in 1600 to the flames of the counter- conflagration, the inquisition of the Roman Church. For Copernicus the heavenly bodies, though moving around the sun as a center still moved in perfect circles. It was Kepler who reduced farther the distinction between the heavenly bodies and the earth. Following the relig- ious minded mathematician,Pythagoras, Aristotle had per- ceived that there was a perfection in the heavens and their“movement was according to different principles than movement on the imperfect earth. Motion in the heavens was in perfect circles, on earth motion was rectilinear. Of course the earth itself did not move. But now .41 advancing from Copernicus, Kepler discovered that neither the earth.mor the heavenly bodies moved in perfect cir- cles but in.elliptic orbits. The unearthly perfection of the heavens had diminished and earthly and heavenly bodies seemed to behave very much alike. In fact, Kepler was able to discover three laws which encompassed the sun and its planets, including the earth. They were: 1) The planets describe eliptic orbits of which the sun occupies one focus, 2) The line joining a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times, and 5) The square of the period of revolution of a planet is proportionate to the cube of its average distance from the sun (Russell 1945:550). It became obvious that mathematics with its absolute, perfectionistic character might find some ser- vice in the sensual order observed by man; that it might help to order the total universe under his sensory gaze. 9 Galileo was to carry the torch of the scientific revolution for such a distance that it is sometimes called the Galilean revolution. His challenge of Aris- totle began in terms of falling bodies. Aristotle held that bodies on earth fall with velocities in proportion to their weight and inversely proportionate to the medium through which they were falling. Galileo denied the re- lation between weight and velocity of fall and develOped the idea of acceleration. The velocity of all bodies, 42 if resistance of the medium is removed, is 52 feet per second at the end of the first second of fall, of 64 feet per second at the end of the next second, 96 feet per second the third, etc. Empirical demonstration gave con- vincing weight to his argument. Galileo added to this a second challenge and that is, all bodies on earth and in the heavens in motion tend naturally to move in a straight line. Aristotle had thought that moving bodies implied some force moving them, assuming the natural state of matter to be at rest. Galileo generalized the law of in- ertia that a body at rest tends to remain at rest and a body in motion to remain in motion. While all three of these generalizations or *laws* were Opposed to Aristotle, what gave them.revolutionary dimensions comes from two uses or applications of them. First, the forces of ac- celeration, fall, and inertia were related by a principle which holds that when more than one force is acting upon a body at the same time the result is as if they each acted separately and in turn. Second, the generalization of these principles and laws to all bodies and motion in the universe. If the overthrow of the Aristotelian dis- tinction between the heavens and the earth was not com- plete, it was completed when Newton took the mathematical formula of Kepler and the law of Galileo and from them brought forth the universal law of gravitation: "Every body attracts every other with a force directly 43 proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them." The world also waited until Newton for an explicit posi- tion regarding the heresy of Bruno--a boundless universe. Newton did not hesitate to take this logical step which seemed to have such a firm foundation in so many ideas having empirical confirmation. Thus the revolution that was the basic and beginning of great intellectual advances was complete. Nature was a determinate, mechanically law- ful universe including heavens and earth, boundless, and expressible mathematically. It was no longer'geocentric,i not even heliocentric, in fact one is led to ask, "How can that which is without boundaries have a center at all? It must be remembered that the scientific revolu- tion as described so far was really an abstract cosmology focused solely upon nature. What is important for the problem.of this thesis is the generalized world view that arose from it. In contrast to the early culture of the Greeks the cosmologies of the pioneers of science had a very wide sphere of influence. The printing press, more extensive participation in intellectual pursuits and possibly the fact that more ideas had empirical confirmation and appli- cation resulted in a wider impact on the population and a deeper influence on the world view. Its influence has 44 continued to broaden over time as Whitehead (192Sz2) had attempted to show: ... this quiet growth of science has practically re- colored our mentality so that modes of thought which in former times were exceptional are now broadly spread through the educated world. ...It had altered the metaphysical presuppositions and the imaginative content of our minds; so that now the old stimuli provoke a new response. There is a crucial shift made however, as the cos- mologies of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton gave birth to the world view of modern man. Galileo and Newton as sci- entists were dealing with phenomena by which the material world was made known to man._ Treating phenomena in an abstract manner, they were able to arrive at generaliza- tions which described the regularities which were observed. These were laws of motion, not laws of moving bodies. The conception of the scientists were however "forced in- to the framework of existing ideas." As a result: no sooner was the conception of inert bodies pas— sively following the dictates of blind forces seen to be applicable to the motion of mass—points, then it was immediately generalized into a world- philosophy (Singer 1959:420). In this manner a world view dominated by a nature, char- acterized by the principle of universal determinism arises from what is only "a generalized statement of certain particularly simple notions." Singer further observes here that it was this new world-view rather than the cos- mologies of the scientist that was at the base of much of the religion versus science conflict that took place from 45 the time of Newton until the middle of the nineteenth century. Whitehead, before Singer, had observed the same metamorphosis as the cosmologies of the scientific pioneers passed over into the world view of a scientific age. He conceptualized this change under the term of the "Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness" (Whitehead 1925:252). From laws produced by generalizations of abstracted reg- ularities observed in phenomena came the determinate forces conceived quite apart from concrete bodies which account for the order found in concrete reality. Histogy-Science-Philosophy In the intellectual development of this period the fourfold distinction in early Greek culture can be ob- served. A survey of a few of the classic accomplishments of the four centuries from 1460-1860 reveals quite dis- tinctly the early Greek pattern of distinction between science, philosophy (including social), mathematics and history. In various men and in some of their works lim- ited combinations of these find expression. In the works of Machiavelli, More, Bodin, Hobbes, Incke, Vico, Hume,Montesquieu, Rousseau, Von Herder, Condorcet, and many others there is a continuing line of social philosophy. Speculation about the nature of 46 social man, the origin and nature of society, the pro- cess of its development and the solution of its problems characterizes the works of these men. They took up the problems of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Some were also historians. Cassirer (1955:219) observes that, "the concept of history first reached maturity in the works of Vico and Herder." In several of these there was develop- ing an evolutionistic social philosophy. Vico posited three stages of history; the divine, the heroic, and the. stage of man. Turgot developed a philosophy of history which was a theory of cultural evolution resulting from the interaction of geographical, biological, and psycho- . logical factors. Herder held that the historical develop- .ment of man was strictly determined by natural forces. The driving forces of history were innate tendencies of man as a manifestation of organic nature. Some of them, as has been noted, attempted to wed philosophy and his- tory in a common explanation of the past. Copernicus, Galileo, meWton and Harvey are out- standing names among others whose achievement may be classed as scientific discoveries. Whatever metaphysical propositions may have been involved in their thinking, they produced explanations of the observable world that could be subjected to empirical test and proof. They carried the tradition of Thales and Democritus far beyond the horizons established by these early Greek scientists. 47 They did not concern themselves with hOW'the order came to be, nor why it was, nor yet what it was. They ad- dressed themselves only to phenomena and the how of its behavior. The mantel of Pythagoras fits well the person of John Napier, whose attempts to systematize algebraic know- ledge led eventually to the conception of the principles of logarithms. He also attempted by his mathematics an interpretation of the book of Revelation. Others who followed in the development of conceptual schemes worked them out in conjunction with more immediate empirical problems. Newton (and Liebnitz) developed the calculus' dealing with curves, to demonstrate that the value of the 'fall of the moon" in its orbit was that required by his theory of gravitation. Thus, while mathematics as purely logical activity may have had a rather autonomous origin from empirical science, it soon became in many ways in- separably wedded to the development of scientific discov- ery. Implicit in this historical fact is a strong argu- ment for at least some level of harmony between matter and mind. In fact, from now on we will not be able to con- sider the stream of scientific knowledge as separate from its logico-mathematical component. Though science became thus wedded to rational thought, it maintained a separa- tion from philosophy. Whitehead (1925:17) observes re- garding science: 48 What reasoning it wanted, has been borrowed from mathematics... Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its faith or to explain its meanings; ... Also (Ibigzl45) "after the close of the seventeenth cen- tury science took charge of the materialistic nature and philosophy took charge of cogitating minds." Other con- ceptual systems were developed such as the classification systems of Linneaus and Iamarck which were more directly suggested by the empirical phenomena itself. A classifi- cation system is however, as Whitehead (Ibid:50) says, a halfway house between immediate concreteness and the com, plete abstraction of mathematical notions. History also found a rebirth in the Renaissance and the Reformation (Shotwell and Jacobs 1955:595): The Reformation, with its heated controversies, seems a strange starting point for science, yet it, even more than the Renaissance, brought out scientific' methods of historical investigation. Many of the historians of these four centuries concerned themselves with the Roman Empire and with the Roman Cathy olic Church. Yet, in all of these from Matthias Flavius Illyricum to Von Ranke there is an increasing development of a critical approach to history. The critical approach to human history was developed by divorcement of the Augustinian philosophy of providence from history. For some time history maintained a relative degree of autonomy from philOSOphy or the science of nature. Even though 49 there was some foreshadowing of evolutionary theory in Voltaire's §§§2$ surles moeurs, "neither the philosgphe historians nor David Hume nor Edward Gibbon arrived at a constructive principle in history which could take the place of the providence that they had rejected." (3239:597) In observing four quite distinct streams of intel- lectual development taking shape first in Greek culture and then coming to greater "florescence' in the four cen- turies following 1460, is not to put forth‘the impression that they developed each in isolation from the other. Two important aspects of their interrelationships deserves attention. First, each of the four streams developed con- currently within a common cultural milieu, not only in early Greek civilization but in its later rebirth. Second, in the works of some men, the streams which are analytically distinct, and as we have observed may be historically distinct, are brought together in varying combinations to produce still further cultural advances. Thus it was a great achievement of Newton to fit together an abstract system of mathematical relationships with ob- served empirical regularities and the ”law of gravitation’ was given mathematical expression. The calculus served to demonstrate the possibility of extending this harmony of “mind and matter.” Both Linneaus and Lamarok developed 50 conceptual systems by which to order the empirical phe- nomena of life, yet both also stoutly rejected the phil- osophical evolutionary ideas which were current. Despite the cleavage of science and philosophy, each found in mathematics an agreeable and useful associate. Whitehead (1925:51) observes, "It was an age of great physicists and great philosOphers; and the physicists and philoso- phers were alike mathematicians." In the works of such men as Buffon and Hutton the scientific I'empirical" discoveries of order in the compo- sition of the earth were wedded with a philosophical as- sumption concerning origins to account for and explain the observed order. At the same time history concerned itself-with nature--rather than limiting itself to the human social symbolic order as with the Greeks. In the uniformitarian assumption of Lyle the events of natural history and the philosophical assumptions of order are no longer sharply distinguished. Buckle attempted to find law in human history and thus sought to bring history and science together. Thus he states (as quoted in Cassirer 1944:250): Rejecting, then, the metaphysical dogma of free will, ... we are driven to the conclusion that the actions of men, being determined solely by their antecedents must have a character of uniformity, that is to say, must, under precisely the same circumstances, always issue in precisely the same results. 51 In spite of these developments, history remained distinct from philosophy and for the most part without "law." In summary then, in the world view that developed out of the Renaissance and the scientific revolution sci- ence, history, and philosophy remained quite distinct confrontations of the world. There developed, however, strong efforts to unite them in various combinations. History was extended to the material world and as such accepted philosophical assumptions of Buffon and Lyle to account for the physical order of the earth. A scientific approach to human history in the sense of developing his- torical laws can hardly be said.to have been widely ac- cepted. Nor did evolutionary social philosophy take on the status of history. Still there seems to be evidence as the 19th century is approached, that there are strains or efforts to bring these diverse streams together. As outlined in this study, they are strains against the fund- amental distinctions inherent in the Greek world view. WORLD VIEW-ETHOS In this study world view-eidos has focused on "what” man confronts or the existential aspects of the world view. World view-ethos has focused on the relation man sees between himself and that confronted or the norm— ative aspect of world view. However, world view-ethos is not something apart from world view-eidos, it is only 52 considered separately. To say that one precedes or ac- counts for the other is not the position taken in this study. To say they are aspects of a world view that have mutual coexistence is the position taken here. Max Scheler's (in Stark 1958:116) argument may be construed that the ethos logically and historically precedes the eidos: Each new object realm which science has conquered in her history, has had first to be seized in an access of affection. ... A new natural science presupposes for this reason a new feeling for nature--a new eval- uation of nature. ... Each of the mental schemata is ushered in by a specific ethos, by a living system of the positive and negative ranking of values... nothing can better illustrate these laws than the social and historical origin of the modern world-view. Yet it is hard to say whether a new perception or concep- tion leads to new ”affection” or vice versa. Perhaps the difficulty here is in creating a falsely, mutually- exclusive character of the ethos and eidos aspect of world view. Rather they may be conceived as continuously reciprocal and mutually supplementary aspects of the world view in the process of its change. Whatever the relation between the existential and normative aspects of the world view is in the process of develOpment, the character of the world view-ethos is in the new scientific outlook quite clearly established. There is an interest in nature as a worthy end in itself. The interest in nature was.however;not the interest of the 55 passive or c00perative primitive. It was the interest of master and exploiter. To understand was to control and govern, to bring into the service of the man unlocking her secrets. Scheler expresses (Ibid:117) this character of the world view in its relations to the other elements: It is the idea and value of human power and freedom vis-a-vis nature which inspires the great centuries of discoveries and inventions, not merely the idea of utility... We are confronted with a change of direction in the will to power, away from God and men towards things... Stark points out the reciprocal relation between the eidos and the ethos of world view. "... for it is only when he learns to think of nature as a quasi-machine that man can also learn to dominate it." Stark (Ibid:118) goes on to make a concise statement of the world view-ethos of sci- ence: Surely, in the western order of values the desire to understand (and control) Nature has in the last three hundred years predominated mightily over the desire to understand God and man, and the result has been a world-view, a working philosophy, no less fundament- ally determined by scientific conceptions (and pre- judices!) than was the imago mundi of the middle ages, for instance, by religion. The cosmologies of science as they were taken over into the world view had a tremendous impact upon the time perspective. Galileo and Newton, studying in an abstract manner the phenomena of nature could not from this arrive at any conceptions of its origin. In fact, the idea of boundedness in space or time is not derivable from nature 54 through any process of abstraction from it. In this sense science is seen as independent of philosophy. It may pursue its process of abstraction without basic assump- tions about origins or the limitation of time and Space. However, as the abstract concepts of boundless time and space became a part of a world philosophy of concrete reality, they became the historical basis of a new phil- osOphy, a new time perspective of eternal time. This change in temporal orientation was both a revolution in terms of the Greek cultural heritage and a challenge to that of traditional Christianity-~Protestant and Roman Catholic. In fact, on this point the Judeao-Christian and the Greek world view had enjoyed a point of mutual reinforcement from the time of their original contact. Now a challenge was presented to both in the name of science; science, that unchallengeable belief system that had proven so many former traditions to be false, and could always prove its position--or so it seemed to the now changed mentality of modern man. Yet, as both Singer and Whitehead have shown the challenge was coming from an emerging philosophy, a philosophy built upon the fallacy of misplaced concreteneSs. The change in time perspective is of great impor- tance to world view-ethos because the orientation toward’ the past and the manner of projection into the future and 55 how both are related to the present is the foundation of the value structure in every society. Through its bound- less time science indirectly had produced a value based factor threatening change in the world view-ethos. In the world viewseidos evidences were observed of efforts to bring together the three distinct systems of outlook-- history, science, and philosophy. Now with the funda- mental time perspective coming into question the stage is set for the 19th century revolution in world view. CHAPTER IV BIRTH OF ANTHROPOLOGY: THE CONVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION The third great revolution in world view has been called the 19th century or the 'Darwinian' revolution. The climax was reached in Darwin's Origin 2; Species. A number of disparate trends had been developing prior to mid 19th century. Evolutionary social philosophy had occupied the thinking of many philosophers. Some histor- ians such as Buckle had been seeking laws of history. History still lacked a philosophy, that is, some meaning- ful foundation and structure through which it could be "understood." Science in a sense had indirectly produced its own philosOphic foundations by its transformation of the general world view, but still it had not been able to "justify its faith or explain its meanings." Though DarWin's work focused on biological man, it provided the key which.brought these desparate conditions together for a common resolution; and presented a new world view. At this point Julian Huxley's words (19603:18; 1960b:251) are most pertinent and descriptive: ... the window that Darwin Opened into the world of life permitted a new and an evolutionary view of other subjects. Men began studying the evolution of nebulae and stars, of languages and tools, of chemical elements, of social organizations. 56 57 Eventually they were driven to view the universe at large sub—specie evolutionist, and so to generalize the evolutionary concept‘In fullest measure. The ex- tension of Darwin' 8 central idea-~of evolution by natural means-~is giving us a new vision of the cosmos and of our human destiny. Darwin Opened the passage leading to a new pattern of ideological organization--an evolution centered organization of thought and belief. Darwin's work may be described as a climax in a; circular movement of man's concept of history. In the work of Buffon history was extended beyond socio-symbolic phenomena to include the earth which had been considered only within the province of science. The result was natural history. Lyle's postulate of uniformitarianism accepted by natural history gave to it a Committed meta- physical position--a philosophical connection. Philos- ophy took a positive concern with the scientist's world when LaPlace and Kant tried to imagine how the solar sys- tem had come about and devised a nebular hypothesis in explanation of its history. Vesalius had advanced the science of the human body at about the same time that COpernicus was revolutionizing the science of terrestrial and celestial bodies. Darwin's extension of natural his- tory to include biological man by means of an evolutionary philosoPhy brought history the full circle around so that now as natural history it was focused again on the course of man's socio-symbolic development. This can be said because culture itself was the crowning achievement of the 58 evolutionary process and Darwin "did not hesitate to ex- tend his argument to cover man's distinctive mental capacities, intellectual, aesthetic and moral" (Huxley 1960a:ll). History had not only attached all phenomena in its cultural entourage, it had been able to identify itself with science and philosophy in the course. For this and other reasons which shall be established in this chapter the "Darwinian revolution" has herein been re- named the Convolution of Evolution in contrast to the Revolution of Science. Darwin developed no evolutionary theory of culture; it was for others to visualize culture within the evolu- tionary order. Tylor, Morgan and others entered "the world of Darwin" and constructed the cosmologies which in- cluded the phenomena of culture. It is with the work of these men that the birth of-anthr0pology must be con- sidered. Kroeber (1960:10) lists the first works that may be truly called anthropology: 1861: Bachofen, The Matriarchate 1861: Maine, Ancient Lag 1864: Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient 9331 1865: McLennan, Primitive Marriage 1865: Tylor,Researches Into the Early History BTW—"— 1870: Lubbock, Origin of Civilization 59 1871: Morgan, Systems 2; Consanguinity 1871: Tylor, Primitive Culture 1877: Morgan, Ancient Society The author is aware that Tylor and the other evol- utionary anthropologists did not receive their ideas from nor build their explanations on Darwin. Their in- tellectual debt was chiefly to their precursors, the evolutionary social philosophers. However, Darwin's work more than anything else had elevated the status of the idea of evolution to that of a scientific concept. Quite apart from any direct influence of Darwin on Tylor and the other anthropologists, the establishment of the sci- entific status of evolution in the minds of many people did have much to do with the writings of these men and also with the acceptance and interpretation of them by their readers. It may also be observed that Darwin and these anthropologists were alike influenced by the evol- utionist ideas which were spawning in their day. WORLD VIEW-EIDOS Man-Nature-God The Galilean revolution transformed the world view by its new outlook on nature. "The Darwinian revolution changed the most crucial elements in man's world--his concept of himself" (Simpson 1960:966). The radical 60 change in a concept of himself is directly related, how- ever, to the view of Nature which developed from the cos- mologies of Galileo and Newton. The acceptance of evol- ution as a fact served to place Man within the mechan- istic-determinist nature which was thought to be the world view of science. This new world view.is a complete world view for it includes all three of the confronta- tions suggested by Redfield-~Man-Nature-God. As in the myths of the primitive, Man is a part of Nature, but it is a different Nature. It is a Nature of mechanistic order--and if an order of mystery at least a mystery that yields up her secrets to the man who is now conceived as a part of her. It is not a sacred order but an order of forces governing all movements and existence within it but at the same time exploitable. It is not a personal order--it doesn't care, it does not have designs for good or bad. ‘ The modern evolutionist, Simpson, recognizes the similarity which the evolutionary world view has with primitive myth in that both identify cultural man in Nature. Because of this common characterization, Simpson holds the primitive (lower superstititions) up in a favorable light as compared to the 'higher super- stitions' of western religions (I2id:967). The 'mythical' character of the evolutionist man-inenature postulate is 61 further attested by its cultural affinity with the world views of nonwestern culture (Veith 1960:1): In contrast to the Western world the far eatern philosophers thought of creation in evolutionary terms. ... once concepts of creation had been formed early in China's recorded history, they remained un- changed and fundamental throughout the Far East un- til the introduction of Western evolutionary theories, and these actually proved considerably less alien to traditional Chinese cosmogonic ideas than to those of the West. Hewever, the world view of the founders of anthropology in other ways is to be contrasted with that of the prim- itive. The identity of ManéNature-God in the primitive world view resulted in agNature that at once partook of the qualities of the personal and the supernatural. The "nature" of Darwin, Huxley, and Tylor "naturalized“ man rather than man."persona1izing" nature. As the world philosophy which developed in part through the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness," was extended to encompass the total world view of man, a "religious-anti-religious" position was incorporated in the world view. When a materialistic naturalistic philosophy was extended to encompass the total world view, including God; rather than a “spiritual" Nature as in the primitive outlook, there was a 'natural' God. Evidence of this character- istic of the world view is found in a quotation from T. .H. Huxley (in White 1949:55): 62 Anyone who is acquainted with the history of sci- ence will admit that its progress has, in all ages, meant and now more than ever means, the extension of the province of what we call matter and causa- tion, and the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of what we call spirit and spontaneity. . Leslie White's charting the cultural course of ideolog- ical history from belief in animism and supernaturalism to a philosophy of naturalism gives evidence that he shares at least this aspect of the evolutionist world view. C There were some, such as Morgan, who at least de— ferred to prevailing religious beliefs, allowing that the whole course of evolution was under the direction of providence. Thus, if materialist philosophy was not presented, God remained distinct from.Nature, but as a supernatural power. The mechanistic determinism which for the materialiSt and naturalist was immanent could thus be made transcendant and located in the person of God. In this manner some religious thinkers attempted to reconcile evolution and religion into a theistic evolution. These efforts, however, were at best compro- mises. In the ontologica1.aspect of the evolutionist world view the sharp distinctions characterizing the Greek world view were not present. Man and his culture were seen as phenomena in Nature and 'God' became phe- nomena in the socio-cultural order. 65 History-Science-PhilosOphy In the basic world view of Western civilization up to this time, history, science, and philosophy had mani- fested some degree of autonomy though trends noted above developed in the 18th and early 19th century toward con- vergences. The assumption of culture as natural phe- nomena by the evolutionists led to the confrontation of culture and nature in such a manner that history, sci- ence, and philosophy became a single intertwined outlook upon reality. In the words of Butterfield (1951:172), "The new science and the new history joined hands and each acquired a new power as a result or their mutual reinforcement." But it was more than mutual reinforce- ment. Both history and science received a new character by the philosophy which joined them together and also joined together with them. "Science and history had come together to present the idea of the whole of nature ad- vancing slowly but relentlessly to some high goal" (Ibid:174). A further similarity is recognized between the evolutionary and the mythical world views. In pre-Greek myth, origin accounts, ultimate goals, history, the pre— sent order and the assumptions underlying it are all undifferentiated in one explanation of reality. The world view rising from the assumption of man and culture 64 in Nature, ties natural history to human history and finds in the present order of nature the key to its own origin and history; and at the same time it accounts for the present order of nature in terms of its own history. The order given to life by an homologous classification becomes the key to its origin and development. This same origin and development becomes the explanation of the order and the whole historical process has a ration- ale--a plan. So likewise, a similar principle was ap- plied to the culture of man but the systems of classi- fication in no wise compared to that constructed for biology by Linneaus and Lamarck. Complex modern civil- ization was the recent end of the process and those simple "primitive“ societies suggested the most remote condition of man. O From its intertwining with philosophy and science, history became at once law abiding and meaningful. Its course was determined, directionally oriented and con- sistent. History and philosOphy combined to account for the order in nature which science confronted. History and science combined to give substantive or factual character to what otherwise were the assumptions of philosophy. The origins that the Greeks had trans-‘ formed from mythical beginnings to:§g%7¥’(metaphysical and logical assumptions of reality) in the evolutionist assumptions became historical “facts" of origins. When 65 Lyell's uniformitarian postulate that all events in the past have taken place in terms of the processes we now see operating, and the evolutionary postulates were in- troduced into an explanation of the origin of the present order then the "forces" of the present order were made to account also for its origin and the fallacy of mis- placed concreteness was extended. That is, the abstract generalizations of the order of nature not only are made to be concrete forces upholding its present orderliness ' but they become concrete facts which account for the origin and development of that order. It is this sense in which philosophy receives a concrete, factual or event content of science and history, and metaphysics is transformed into physics. A third approach to the problem of the world view resulting from an inclusion of man and culture in Nature Comes from focusing on the culture aspect of this postu- late. If world view is the way peOple look out on their World, then it must be in this sense that the culture has empirical'reality and is conceived by the anthropol- ogist as existing in the world of nature. While it is a second logical step to hold that the anthropologist's eXplanation must then also exist in the sphere of nature, _ the postulate is primarily assuming the outlook on the world which exists in the minds of the people being studied as natural phenomena. Yet in each instance, 66 whether it is the world view of the people studied or that of the anthropologist doing the studying-mthe one looking out as well as their outlook becomes a part of that nature. From this it follows that nature becomes a self existent, self conceived, self knowing reality. Science as an explanation of culture becomes a product ’. of the culture which it explains. In this manner the methodological strands that the Greek transformation of world view had so clearly differentiated. out of primi- tive myth, again were interwoven in man's approach to hi 3 world . WORLD VIEW-E THOS Redfield shows how primitive man with a world View in which man and God are both identified with nature, acted out of a sense of participation. The "Greek transformation" and the scientific revolution brought about a great change in terms of world view- ethoa (Redfield 1955:110): But gradually man comes to stand aside and look first at God-nature, then in the case of the Hebrews, God-without-nature, and then beginning With the Ionian philosophers 'who moved in a curious borderland,‘ at nature without God. The subsequent development of a world view in which God and man are both separated from nature, and in which the exploitation of material nature comes to be a prime attribute, may be attributable to our Western world almost entirely, and so might be regarded, as Sol Tax has suggested, as a par- ticular 'cultural invention.‘ 67 To Redfield's observation it might be added that under the Greeks the state itself became a means of man's con- trol of man. This possibility was not open' to the prim- itive and in the civilizations prior to the Greeks, man only as an agent of deity could control fellow man. The idea of self government reflects both man's detachment from nature and the Greek de-emphasis of God. In this sense democracy finds common cultural rootage with sci- ; ence, philosophy and history. Redfield suggests three distinguishable attitudes toward the Not-Man: maintain it, obey it, act upon it. Primitive man's participation called for emphasis on maintenance or obedience. Exploitative action upon nature oharacerizes the world view-ethos of Western Civilization. Does the evolutionary anthropologist's as sumption that man. and culture are phenomena of nature have any implications for his world view-ethos? It is to be remembered that the range of cultures from prim- itive to Western civilization with their different at- titudes toward nature are regarded as natural phenomena as is the course of their development and change. The Placing of the "exploitative" culture of Western civil- ization within a mechanistic-deterministic conceived Nature might appear to leave the anthropologist~with confused attitudes. At least he is called upon to 68 reconcile what appears to be conflicting attitudes. He is at once endowed with the resources of science in its conquest over nature with human destiny in his hands only to find that he is confronted with the laws of nature governing his own cultural destiny. Perhaps the solution is found on the aspect of the new world view which the anthropologist seeks to focus. Perhaps as observer scientist he exempts himself momentarily from his own theory. Still further, it may be that by a distinction between the scientist and cit- izen roles, he is able to maintain the fundamental Greek and scientific concept of detachment. Or, in some mys- tical way may feel that scientific detachment is in harmony with the moral "engulfment" of man by nature. However this problem may be solved by individual anthro- pologists, certain problematical implications of the new world view are in evidence for the culture at large. Russell (1925:728, 729) focuses our attention on them in the following words: There thus arises, among those who direct affairs or are in touch with those who do so, a new belief in power; first the power of man in his conflicts with.nature, and then the power of rulers as against the human beings whose beliefs and aspir- ations they seek to control by scientific propo- ganda, especially education. The result is a diminuation of fixity; no change seems impossible. Nature is raw material; so is that part of the human race which does not effectively participate in government. There are certain old beliefs which represent men's belief in the limits of human power; of these the two chief are God and 69 truth. (I do not mean that the two are logically connected.) Such conceptions tend to melt away; even if not explicitly negated, they lose impor- tance, and are retained only superficially. This whole outlook is new, and it is impossible to say how mankind will adapt itself to it. It has al- ready produced immense cataclysms, and will no5 doubt produce others in the future. To frame a philosophy capable of cOping with;men intoxicated with the prospect of almost unlimited power and also with the apathy of the powerless is the most pressing task of our time. From this statement by Russell it would seem that the nineteenth century evolutionist world view has tended to differentiate itself among its shareholders. Some are in the controlling position and others are the con- trolled. Time perspective is also an important aspect of the world view-ethos. It is to be remembered that the scientific revolution in world view regarding nature led to an abstract conception of nature as boundless in space and in time. The introduction of the phenomena of man and culture into nature introduced the problem of history and change that is foreign to the abstract con- siderations that led to the idea of boundless epace and time in the first place. The concept of boundless space and time was a product of an abstract perspective of reality taken from a fixed order and therefore based on "being" as opposed to the evolutionist perspective of "becoming." The postulate of the evolution of man and culture as phenomena in nature resulted in a world view 70 of concrete reality characterized by a boundless and eternal becoming in contrast to Galileo's and Newton's abstract concept of boundless space and time; Kroeber (l960:7) confirms the position that "Greek science also cheerfully confined itself tO‘a fixed world" and also "... the Copernican overturn, Kepler‘s laws, Galileo and Newton did not alter this basic outlook." The world of these men was a dynamic world but it operated in a fixed order. The evolutionary view attempted to encompass the origin, development and change of order itself. Where- as in the pre—Greek mythical world man lived in an eter- nal world of being, a new world view now takes shape in which he lives in an eternal world of becoming. CONCLUSION Thus far it has been observed that the world view of evolutionist anthropology has in several ways re- turned to the world view of ancient myth--but in each instance has maintained also a critical difference. The world view resulting from assuming man and culture as phenomena of nature has led to a similarity with prim- itive myth in which the fundamental observer-observed detachment of Western civilization has become problem- atical. The identification of Man and Nature in the world view is the first of these. Second, if knowledge becomes a natural phenomenon, the critical aspect of the 71 observer-observed relationship again becomes problemat- ‘ical. Finally it has been shown that the concept of nature within which man and culture were assumed to be phenomena and which resulted in an eternal time perspec- tive of becoming rests, at one point, on the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. This concept of Whitehead's consists of the failure to distinguish abstract know- ledge from the thing known and so again is problematical in terms of the observer-observed detachment. The cultural foundations of modern anthropology have been traced to its Greek base, to the 17th century scientific revolution, and to the evolutionist man and culture in nature hypothesis. It has been observed that a world view developed out of the scientific revo- lution which gave evidence to certain tendencies to change in a direction that was not in complete conform- ity with the methodological distinction of the Greek world view as described in this thesis. That is, the fundamental distinctions between history-science- philosophy gave some indications of breaking down. It has been further observed that the evolutionist man-and culture-in-nature postulate involves a world view in which these methodological distinctions are no longer sharply maintained; and further, the ontological dis- tinctions (Man-Nature-God) are not differentiated as in the Greek world view. Some of the outlines of world 72. view change have thus been discovered as the cultural foundations of anthrOpology have been investigated. At this point it is important to observe that while the Greek world view broke sharply with the primitive myth, each succeeding world view*rests upon some of the ele- ments of the preceding world view. This fact indicates a certain persistence and continuity despite the process of change. At the same time logically incompatible ele- ments between them have been observed. It must be re- membered, however, that insofar as these world views exist at different points in time there is no problem of logically incompatible elements. On the other hand, insofar as each succeeding world view does in some sense rest upon the preceding world view there is the possibil- ity of the persistence of elements that may present log- ical dilemmas within the existing world view of anthro- pology. The possibility that the evolutionist man-and culture-inenature world view may present certain logical incompatibilities with persisting elements from former world views of Western Civilization presents a heuristic hypothesis by which a century of anthropology will be reviewed and by which four anthropologists shall be compared. CHAPTER V A CENTURY OF ANTHROPOLOGY The origins of anthropology have here been con- ceived in terms of the convergence of three distinct streams of intellectual development unique in western Civilization as they came to focus on man. This con- vergence was accomplished by the acceptance of a postu- late which regards man and his culture as phenomena of nature. The concept of nature as here defined was the 17th century mechanistic concept of Galileo and Newton, reified into a generalized world philosophy. To this deterministic world of nature was added a diachronic dimension by the uniformitarian postulate of Charles Lyell. The evolutionary assumption of the social phil- osophers placed psychic man and his cultural history within the order of nature thus defined. It was not long, however, before serious strains began to develop in the methodological aspects of the evolutionist world view. In fact, the history of anthropology from Tylor and his contemporaries unto the present may be struc- tured in terms of responses to fundamental problems that succeeding generations of anthropologists 73 74 perceived to exist in the lack of differentiation be- tween history-science and philosophy which character- ized the 19th century evolutionist position. The history of anthropology has been viewed from various vantage points and in terms of various criteria. In 1948 Siegel gave a short reveiw from the perspective of the values of anthropologists. Tax's interest in social organization led him to scan the historical de- velOpment of the analysis of kinship (Tax 1955). White and Kluckhohn have written historical perspectives in terms of the development of evolutionary theory (White 1959, Kluckhohn 1959). Most recently Voget (1960) has traced the history of anthropology in terms of the shifts in the definition of man's relation to culture and in the definition of the culture concept itself. Regardless of the vantage point, interest or position of the anthropologist as he looks back over the past develOpment of his discipline, there is considerable agreement on the general outlines of the course of its history. The historical periods of the development of anthropological thought as outlined by Voget has con- siderable agreement in the literature. They are as follows: First period: Psychogenic evolutionism 1860-1900 Second period: Historical interactionism 1900—1925 75 Third period: Culturalism-functionalism-wholism 1925-1940 Recent period: Synthetic interactionism,l940- ~ present These periods, however, are only convenient and some- what arbitrary divisions in the history of the develop- ment of anthropological thought. They, of course, do not actually have sharply demarkated beginnings or end- ings, and also the development in England and America have been either complementary or diverse rather than parallel. Intellectual inventions may be dated with some historical accuracy, but they seldom come to an abrupt demise. They continue on, being develOped, mod- ified, qualified, or adapted to new situations or find- ings. Sometimes, in conflict with rival systems, they :may contribute to the rise of still newer inventions of 'thought. It shall be the procedure of this chapter to «consider the continuing development of important positions and the new positions taken in reaction to 'them without conceiving of periods having terminal jpoints. This procedure is more in line with an ethno- history. THE EVOLUTIONISTS Whether the history of anthropology is divided into periods or is viewed as shall be done here, one must, begin with the early evolutionists. Tylor,’ Morgan, 76 Maine, Bachofen, and many other of their contemporaries relied upon the evolutionist man- and-culture-in-nature postulate as the key which could unlock the secrets of man's unknown past, interpret his present existence, and give some insight and prediction into his future. The titles of the works of many of these pioneers re- veal that they perceived that they had been able to join natural science and human-history in a new under- standing of man. Tylor wrote Researches Into the Early History of Mankind. Sir John Lubbock called his work The Origin" of Civilization, while McLennan43 two vol- umes—were unostentatiously titled Studies in Ancient Histggy. Goldenwieser (1925:220) observed that the evolutionist wasa "believer in fixed historic laws and unilinear development... To him (each) phase was never merely a historic event but a link in a deterministic chain." But history had at long last received a phil- osophy-—even more social philosophy had become identi- fied with history. History had a principle and meaning as well as being lawful and determined. Origins and the evolutionary stages of development served ,to explain the nature of observed social reality and also pointed t30 normative goals in the process of‘ history. Abstract systems of thought or mathematics did n0t form a conspicuous place in the cultural development 77 of anthropology as it had in the hands of Newton in his approach to the empirical world of physical reality. Logical classification systems, an order of simplicity to complexity, and some rather mystic faith in the num- ber three are the main elements of the abstract system of thought in the development of evolutionary anthropol- ogy. Culture was given its classic definition by Tyler who is more than any other claimed as the Father of Modern Anthropology. He defined culture as ”that com- plex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits ac- - quired by man as a member of. society"(Tylor 1875:1). Whitehead lists four ideas whose cumulative ef- fort transformed the mid 19th century into. anl"orgy of scientific triumph." They were: 1) a field of physical activity pervades all “space, 2) Dalton's idea of atomicity of matter, 5) the conservation of energy, and 4) the doctrine of evolution. It was an orgy, however, that did not continue. through to the century's end. In the words of Whitehead (1925:105): Then almost suddenlyé a pause occurred; and in its last twenty years t century closed with one of the dullest stages of thought since the time of the First Crusade. Whatever, the reason may have been, the new intellectual Outlook of man experienced difficulties resulting "in a 78 period of relative sterility. What Whitehead observes in the culture at large seems to be true of anthropology in particular. In fact, from the perspective of history, new developments in anthropology awaited the turn of the century and Franz Boas. When new developments did come they took the form of a reaction against the evolutionist hypotheses which had bound history, philOSOphy and sci- ence together. The scientific or law governed histories of man did not often agree even if the philosophy in— volved in them did. Sir Henry Maine, the Scot, traced the origin of social life to the patriarchal family. Bachofen, the Swiss, on the other hand, saw~the origin of social life in promiscuity, laterdeveloping into the matriarchal family; the patriarchal family being on the most recent end of the evolutionary history of man. Furthermore, the scientific tradition with its demand for evidence, testing and proof began to raise some questions concerning the affinity of science with its cultural bedfellow--social philosophy. Both historical and current evidence of change did not always fit the cultural law determined stages of the evolutionists.‘ Environmental factors and cultural contact appeared to introduce important evidence that challenged the fixed historical laws. Some societies were observed to pass from savagery to civilization without going through the ”a, 79 intervening stages or substages. Still others were ob- served to go in an "unlawful" direction as when a monog- amous society developed polygamy; It is true that those who raised these questions were dealing with specific cultures and not just with culture, but the generalized principle had been expected to be substantiated by the particular rather than be challenged by it. History also showed some evidence that the relation provided for it with social philosOphy-and science by the evolution— ary assumptions were not exactly comfortable. Golden- wieser observes (1952:221): The historic period did not invite evolutionary analysis. There was too much complexity, too many facts, the 'disturbing' agencies of historic con- tacts were busily at work and marred the picture. ... The very paucity of data, especially the lack of historic depth in this primitive material, fitted it admirably to serve as grist*for the evolutionist's mill. He who attempted to read evolution into the archives of recorded history was lost. The theory of evolution, however, had been a (Loc. cit.): "formula" for primitive societies whereby a "chain of chronological zeros became transformed into a quasi-historic record of events by being placed on end, in time, with the First Origin as the beginning and the Dawn of History as the end. ‘ While Goldenwieser is a product of "Historicalism" it is to be observed that White, the evolutionist, rec- ognizes that the reaction which developed against evol- ution was in terms of the history-science issue, albeit, ' in his estimation a psuedo issue (1959:111). 80 That the evolutionary hypotheses were a cohesive factor in the development of a science of man is at least suggested by the fact that reactions against it. were followed by centrifugal directions of develOpment. Fortes (1955:15) speaks of the "bundle of interests held together by the evolutionary frame of thought.” The questioning of these hypotheses led to conceptual and theoretical specialization and division. Evolution had focused the concern of early anthropologists and sociol- ogists on both 'primitive' and modern-man. No sharp conceptual differentiation was made between society and culture (Kroeber and Parsons 1958:582). ‘Sociologists and anthropologists today find common historical inter- est in Durkheim, Morgan, Spencer, Comte, and others. When internal strains developed between history, sci- ence, and social philosophy and a reaction set in against the postulates of cultural evolution, just before 1900, sociology preempted the substantive teré ritory of "modern civilization" and anthropology chose "primitive" cultures. Further, sociology came to a con- ceptual focus on society, social relations or social systems, while American anthropologists in contrast developed the concept of culture. A social psychology began to develop some degree of autonomy from either of these disciplines. In fact, Tarde, the French social 81 psychologist represents a reaction against the evolup tionist position. Lowie (1937:107) observes of Tarde that, "Here is no trace of smugness, no suggestion that in 1885 man had reached a peak from which he might look down pityingly, if not scornfully on his predecessors." Tarde relied upon historical and contemporaneous data and focused his attention on the emotional or irrational in human behavior. His work greatly influenced the anthropologist, Boas. Still further, anthropology de- veloped more of a natural history approach while soc- iology was more inclined to develop a theoretical social science approach. In England, on the other hand, there developed quite a sharp distinction between ethnology and social anthropology. For the early evolutionists ”all of these centrifugal interests remained bound to- gether within the framework provided by their major postulates. THE NATURAL HISTORY REACTION: FRANZ BOAS Franz Boas led the reaction of this period against the position of the evolutionists. His influ- . ence was greater in America than in England or in his former homeland, Germany. The intellectual training of Boas had been in physics and mathematics. His scien- tific interest had been characterized by an empiricist attitude, being exceedingly wary of philosophical 82 assumptions involved in system and theory building. Possessed of a wide intellectual curiosity the post doctoral activity of Boas took him to the Baffin Islands, studying the Eskimo. From here on his sci- entific interests focused on human phenomena. Keesing (1958:145) observes that Boas was: influenced strongly by two scientific traditions accumulating outside the evolutionary viewpoint: one a German 'geographic' approach, the other the American 'field work' approach. The result was an analysis of specific culture histories. In a classic article which was written in 1898 Boas outlines the issues he takes against the evolu- tionists' positions. Examples from totemic societies and family organization are cited to support his posi- tion. A few excerpts are presented here (Boas 1940: 275): Thus we recognize that the fundamental assumption which is so often made by modern anthropologists cannot be accepted as true in all cases. We can- not say that the occurrence of the same phenomenon is always due to the same causes, and that thus it has proved that the human mind obeys the same laws everywhere... The comparative studies of which I have been speaking here attempt to explain customs and ideas of remarkable similarity which are found here and there. But they pursue also a more am- bitious scheme of discovering the laws and the history of the evolution of human society. Boas supports his position by showing how dissimilar causes may lead to the same phenomenon and that die- similar phenomena may result from similar causes. 85 The evolutionist postulate was rejected not only as giving a false lawfulness to history but also be— cause it represented an unreliable theory which biased the obServer (Ibida277): Forcing phenomena into the strait jacket of theory is opposed to the inductive process by which the actual relations of definite phenomena may be de- rived. The latter is no other than the much ridiculed historical method. By rejecting the evolutionary assumptions, science and history became for Boas two distinct intellectual pro- cesses. Boas recognized each as a valid approach to phenomena, but having a differential applicability to different phenomena and to different problems (Smith 1959:55)= Boas always emphasized that the data of anthrOpology were different in many respects from those of the natural sciences notably because of the presence of historical factors. Boas did not concern himself with the broad stretches of time but mainly with the historical character of his phenomena. His empircist approach could be consistently applied to both synchronic phenomena of matter and dia- chronic phenomena of mind while keeping the distinction between them clear. His rejection of the philOSOphic foundations of evolutionary theory left history and science as inherently distinct orders of knowledge-- distinct because the differences in the phenomena of nature required difference of "scientific" approach. 84 VKroeber, a student of Boas, developed the idea of the threefold distinction in nature of inorganic, organic, and superorganic. Historical and scientific activity are also distinguished (Kroeber 1953:63): Historical activity is essentially a procedure of integrating phenomena as such; scientific activity, whatever its ultimate syntheses, is essentially a procedure of analysis, of dissolving phenomena in order to convert them into process formulations. The superorganic is'conceivedmas yielding more fruit- fully to the natural history approach and the inorganic to the natural science approach (Kroeber 1952:65): It is the nature of things--I do not pretend to explain whyb-that in the inorganic realm the pro- cessual approach of science has yielded most re- sults, but as we pass successively into the realms of the organic, psychic, and social-cultural- 'historical,' this approach encounters more and more difficulties and its harvest diminishes. In the American school of Boas the natural his- tory approach led to a concern with 'local cultures' in contrast to culture itself and to a divorcement of cul-' ture from psychology. Goldenweiser,(l925:230) a stu- dent of Boas, explains that the basic assumption of the psychic unity of mankind held by the evolutionists was accepted: As our familiarity with primitive life increased, it became ever more evident that culture could not be explained by psychology, that the only road to- wards the comprehension of cultural individuality led through patient and intensive exploration of restricted local cultures in their historica- geographical settings. 85 The position of Boas, disentwining the strands of evol- utionary social philosophy, science and history, thus led also to a modification of the concept of culture and in- troduced a problem as to the relation of the individual to culture. This problem is emphasized in subsequent de- velopments in the positions of the followers of Boas. Kroeber-took the polar position of dealing with culture in complete abstraction from behavior, the individual, personality, or society (Kroeber 1952:8). For Kroeber this was a methodological position in no wise denying the reality or importance of the individual or of society, but still regarding culture as phenomena to be understood in terms of itself. Boas maintained a concern with the individual as Sapir quotes him as saying (Goldschmidt 1959:146): ... the dynamics of social life can be understood only on the basis of the reaction of the individual to the culture in which he lives and of his influ- ence upon society... An error of modern anthro- pology, as I see it, lies in the over-emphasis on historical reconstruction, the importance of which should not be minimized, as against a penetrating study of the individual under the stress of the cul- ture in which he lives. While concern is with the individual, it is a matter of the "individual and his culture.“ This perSpective is foreign to the evolutionists with culture regarded more as the psychic development of man and in no wise bounded by particular societies. It is not strange then that 86 some of the followers of Boas chose to focus on the cul- ture aspect of the 'culture and individual' relation- ship as did Kroeber; and that others should concern themselves with either the individual or the individual in his relation to culture~as did Sapir. For Sapir (in Kessing 1958:157): the true locus of culture is in the interaction of specific individuals and, on the subjective side, in the world of meaning which each one of the in- dividuals may unconsciously abstract for himself from his participation in these interactions. Sapir (1917:441) protests Kroeber's elimination of the "peculiar influence of individuals on the course of history, even if by that term is understood culture history..." While Sapir supports the separation between science and history, he feels that Kroeber distinguished them in a false manner. Kroeber has designated the method of natural history as more applicable to super- organic phenomena which to him is superpsychic. Sapir admits to a distinction between the organic level and the level of consciousness but denies any superpsychic force. Sapir holds that an historical science versus an experimental science of the psychic world of man dis- tinguishes anthropology from psychology which is a natural science or conceptual approach to the psychic world of man. He thus distinguishes history and natural science as different approaches to the same level of phenomena holding that geology is in a similar manner 87 to be distinguished from physics and chemistry. Boas maintained with the evolutionists that human phenomena was natural phenomena. His rejection of the evolutionary social philosophy not only was anti- theoretical but also differentiated between the histor- ical and the natural science approach to human phenom- ena. He chose the approach of natural history. The natural history approach necessarily was concerned with particular cultures which called then for some kind of definition of the relation of culture and the individ- ual. While admitting of course that culture exists only in individuals, his student, Kroeber, finds the locus of forces concerned with the development of culture apart from any particular individuals. Sapir solved this problem in the alternative manner finding the locus of culture forces in the psychic character of in- dividuals. Radin, a third student of Boas, solves the problem presented by the position of Boas in a third manner. Radin Opposes dealing with "the data of ethnology as though they were comparable to those of biology and physics." He Opposes treating cultural phenomena as phenomena of nature. By doing so, culture and the individual do not become problematical dis- tinctions which call for some definition of relation- ship. History presents individuals in their social be- havior over time. Radin introduces his Method and 88 Theogy of Ethnology with the statement from.Maitland, "By and by anthrOpology will have a choice between being history or nothing." In surveying the history of ethno- logical theory, he reaches the conclusion that "any in- terpretation of ethnological data wishing to make claim to adequacy must unite the true historical with the psychological approach" (Radin 1952:22). That he ob- serves his position as at least a second step removed from the evolutionary position is indicated by his out- lining three attitudes toward obtaining a complete ac- count of an aboriginal culture. There is first the evol- utionary position of reconstructing stages in the evol- ution of culture. Second, the natural history approach of Boas demonstrating the diversity in forms of culture develOped since the beginning of time. And third, the position of his own in which (Radin 1955zxii): it need properly have no purpose, any more than a description of the civilization of Greece or England has a purpose, over and above that of being a specific account of a given culture. The historical approach is carried farther as Radin does not share Kroeber's concern with cultural dynamics stat- ing that to follow either this course or that of seeking for historical laws "confusion and mischief will follow in its wakeé" Radin's position may be regarded as a more radical rejection of the evolutionist world view and the problems which he felt still remained in Boas' position. 89 Radin saw the difficulty in first of all differentiating cultural facts from physical facts and then practicing a scientific approach to both. His criticism is then that (Radin 1953:S): In spite of manifold and manifest differences between the evolutionist and anti-evolutionist approach, they do share one thing in common, viz. that they treat the data of ethnology as though they were comparable to those of biology or physics. He adds (Radin 1953:11, 12): The only legitimate inference is that, in contrast to the culture historian, Boas is scientifically minded... he instinctively treats every discipline as if it were a natural or mathematical science. Radin sees an ontological difference in ethnographical data that does not permit the scientific approach to it. He holds that by treating cultural facts as though we are "beside" or "above" them, they are reduced to physical facts; an objectivity is introduced into cultural phe- nomena that is impossible and destructive. Radin then is carrying the separation of science and history one step farther. Basic ontological differences, and epistemological problems mean that only the historical method is to be applied to cultural phenomena because it is not natural phenomena. Science is a valid approach only to biological and physical phenomena. He has viewed Boas' position one of wavering inconsistency be- tween that of natural science and history. He concludes that (Radin 1953:23): 90 ... these three representative American ethnologists (Boas, Kroeber, Wissler) are exceedingly eclectic in their methods. Sometimes it is an approximation to an historical, at other times to a scientific, method; then it becomes psychological and ends finally as a fullfledged sociological approach. THE REACTION OF NATURAL SCIENCE: RADCLIFFE-BROWN AND MALINOWSKI The English structural-functionalist reaction to cultural evolutionism came later than the American His— toricalism.of Boas. It was none—the-less a response to evolutionary theory. Fortes (1955:16) writes: ... by 1932, the evolutionary bundle had fallen to pieces, and of the scattered members social anthro- pology had emerged as the basic discipline concerned with custom and social organization in the simpler societies. ‘ In contrast to the historicalism of the American school, Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown took a natural science position either denying or de-emphasizing the importance of history. The character of the historical work of the extreme diffusionists, Perry and Smith, may have been a factor of the English choice of natural science. For Malinowski, history was important only as it existed in the living present. It is interesting to observe that Malinowski's concept of origins is quite parallel to the 2: / Gre ek d. ’PX Y] . I believe that ultimately we will accept the view that "origins" is nothing else but the essential nature of an institution like marriage or the nation, the family or the state, the religious congregation 91 or the organization of witchcraft (Malinowski 1.944316). Malinowski does denounce any attempt to 'reconstruct‘ history through evolutionary assumptions but holds that if functionalist considerations had been taken into ac- count, the works of the evolutionists might not have suffered from many of their pitfalls. He says (Loo. cit.): We would, however, have to make any evolutionary scheme of successive developmental strata either very general or else valid only for certain re- gions and under certain conditions. Malinowski (1941:185) has an institutional concept of culture defining it as: ... the minimum mechanism for the satisfaction of the most elementary needs of man's animal nature, and also an ever-developing, ever-increasing system of new ends, new values, and new creative possibil- ities. A In focusing his attention on society Radcliffe- Brown says a science of culture is not possible since it is only a characteristic of the social system. Here the diachronic phenomena of history is excluded from culture and from Radcliffe-Brown's concern. The natural science issue is foremost (Radcliffe-Brown 1957:3): The problem with which we are to be concerned is that of the possibility of a natural science of human societies, that is, of applying to the phenomena of the social life of mankind--its moral, religious, juridicial, political, and economic institution, and the arts and sciences, and language--the same logical methods that are .92 applied in the physical and biological sciences, and by that means to attain to scientifically exact formulations of significant and probable generalizations. ' Radcliffe-Brown joins Boas in opposing a science of cul- ture. “Is a science of culture possible? Boas says it is not. I agree" (Ibid:106). But where Boas opposes a science of culture because of the historical dimen- sion of culture, Radcliffe-Brown cpposes it because cul- ture ahorn of the historical dimension is only an as- pect of the social system. In contrast Malinowaki, ignoring the historical dimension of culture, attempts to build a science of culture by tying it to a psycho- logical and biological base. While the British social anthropologists went in the direction of natural science and the American ethnologists more in the direction of natural history, they both distinguished the historical method from the scientific method, the fusion of which by the evolutionists they felt was confusion. Radcliffe- Brown referred to this fusion as theoretical or con- jectural history. Looking back he said (1958:15): The older anthropologists... were not quite sure whether they wished to reconstruct the history of civilization or to discover its laws, and often tried to do the two things at once. A distinction is made between synchronic and diachronic problems which is "absolutely necessary to study sep- arately" (Radcliffe-Brown 1957:88). Radcliffe-Brown 93 distinguishes social morphology, social physiology and problems of develOpment. The latter is what he regards as the legitimate area of social evolution. Thus-he comes to a threefold distinction in anthrOpology (Ibid: 85—89): 1) Ethnology which is a geographical, historical approach to the vocal, language and cultural differences of pe0ple, 2) Social anthrOpology which is a natural science approach to human societies, and 3) Culturology which is the evolutionary explana- tion of organized development. The first two are regarded as approaches to cultural facts, Radcliffe-Brown preferring the second. The third receives only mention and by inference, if it is not an approach to culture facts, may be called philosophical. Leslie White (1959:111) recognizes the divorcement of history and science as an anti-evolutionary position: Anthropologists who diverge as widely as Boas, Radcliffe-Brown, Redfield, Kroeber, Lowie, Chapple and Coon, Tax, and Radin on certain points are nevertheless in agreement in accepting the history- or-science dichotomy. White's chief objection to the history-science dichotomy is "that it fails to take account of evolution." Radcliffe-Brown's recognition of the evolutionary ap- proach, having separated history and science from it, leaves little more than a social philosophy of the or- igins and nature of social reality. Thus from the view- points of the evolutionist, Boas is anti-theoretical because of his concern with specific culture histories. 94 Radcliffe-Brown, on the other hand, in his theoretical science approach to society, does not treat the dia- chronic phenomena of history. A disciple of Radcliffe- Brown confirms this position (Evans-Pritchard 1950:120): What is new in this restatement of the theory is the insistence that a society can be.understood satisfactorily without reference to its past... The modern version of a naturalistic study of society, even if lip service is sometimes paid to the possibility of the scientific study of social change, claims that for an understanding of the functioning of a society there is no need for the student of it to know anything about its history, any more than there is for a physiologist to know the history of an organism to understand it. Both are natural systems and can be described in terms of natural law without recourse to history. Fortes (1955:50) very clearly presents the functionalist position.regarding history and science in anthropology: ... leaving aside the blind alley of conjectural history (evolutionism), we must distinguish'be- tween two roads in the study of social life. ... Whereas history aims at establishing partic- ular sequences and combinations, social anthropology aims at discovering verifiable 'general laws or tendencies' in the particular case. The two are not opposed but complementary, and essential to each other. All the same they must be disting- uished so as to avoid confusion. Radcliffe-Brown defines culture as a standardiza- tion of behavior in a certain group of human beings in a certain society. It is only an aspect of the social system not concrete soCial phenomena. Culture is then a set of rules for behavior which have phenomenal reality only as it exists in the minds of individuals. Culture may also be considered in terms of the behavior 95 component and for this Radcliffe-Brown uses the term social usage. Three aspects of culture are: a set of rules, a body of commonly shared symbols and commonly shared attached meaning, and a body of commonly shared sentiments and beliefs. In this sense culture is an as— pect of two systems, the psychological system of in- dividuals and the social system, but is not what Radcliffe-Brown.calls a conceptually isolable system in and of itself. His position is understandable be- cause natural systems as such do not take into account the diachronic phenomena of history. Radcliffe-Brown is then able to deal with a social system apart from psychology and the individual, yet culture is still an aspect of the individual not something apart from him. He strongly opposes separating culture from the individ- ual as a reification of the concept. since culture is only a name for the standardization of behavior or for the standards held in men's minds, it cannot be con- ceived as being a force apart from them bringing about standardization (Radcliffe-Brown 1957:47): Culture continues by the fact that individuals are subjected to the acts of other people on them, not to acts of culture. If you say that an individual is acted upon by his culture, you are again in one of those logical impasses which renders all dis- cussion impossible. At least two reactions to the natural science approach of Radcliffe-Brown are to be found in the 96 development of British social anthrOpology. These re- actions are expressed in two disciples of Radcliffe- // Brown, Raymond Firth and Evans-Pritchard. While these two sharply diverge on some issues, both find themselves moved to a concern with the diachronic dimension of cul» ture. Firth, finding the structural position of Radcliffe-Brown inadequate to deal with the phenomena of change introduces the concept of social organization to handle change at least in terms of short range pro- cess. This reaction characterizes the more recent de- velopments in British anthropology (Firth 1956:61): The air of enchantment which for the past two decades has surrounded the 'structuralist' point of view has now begun to be dispelled. ... All British social anthrOpologists are structuralists in their use of the analytical principles developed by this* method. But the rigidity and limitations of a simple structuralism have come to be more widely perceived. Firth perceives the limitation of structuralism in terms of its abstract static character. He feels that it is unable to present dynamic concrete reality nor to take into account the important dimension of time. These are the reasons which lead Boas to choose the empirical ap- proach to history rather than an abstract natural science approach. While favorably critical of social anthropologists' efforts to treat social change, Firth (1954:15) admits: 97 The significance of the time factor in social anthropology has been epitomized by Fortes... Yet it cannot be said that our handling of the time dimension of our material is satis- factory... Most of this work has obvious methodological lim- itations. It is apt to be dual synchronic rather than truly diachronic, comparative at separate periods and ignorant of intervening events which might modify the interpretation of trends. 'Firth goes farther, admitting that the structural- functional treatment change has come short of the phe- nomena of history (Ibid:16): With all this, we are hardly yet on the threshold of any general theory of a dynamic kind which will enable us to handle comprehensively the range of material within our normal anthropological sphere. We cannot ignore that the 'social change‘ of the anthropologist is only a facet of the great process of human history. It is a dimension of our subject matter rather than a division of it. Firth prefers to keep "this dimension of our sub- ject matter" on a micro scale rather than the macro diachronic approaches of Sorokin, Toynbee, or even Kroeber. The reason is easily discernable in his ap- proach. Firth has sought to maintain the natural sci- ence approach of Radcliffe-Brown and to also take into account the dimension of time. To do this the comple- mentarity of the concepts social structure and social organization are presented. The ambiguity of the re- lation and distinction between these two terms in Firth's usage indicates that the union which he has sought to accomplish is at least problematical. The 98 conceived complementarity is handled in at least three different manners. First of all they are presented as representing complementary approaches to phenomena. Structure is the abstract approach of natural science. Organization is the approach to the concrete phenomena of social relations which inoludes the consequences of individual decision and choice and the diachronic di- mension of change. Second, they are treated as comple- mentary aspects of social relations. Structure deals with form or the persistence, continuity and repetitive aspects of social relations. Organization is concerned with the processes in social life, the adaptation of behavior to given ends. Thus organization is able to explain such things as the allocation of rights and duties among persons, ranges of social recognition and social control which structure cannot. Third, they are used as related elements within the phenomena of social relations. In this sense Firth says that the structure provides the framework for action and within this frame- work the organization of decision and choice takes place. Organization, however, may be carried beyond the structural framework and in which case if this re- mains permanent, may result in change in the structure itself. This empirical distinction between structure and organization is emphasized when Firth (1956:12) writes, "But societies which do not have structural 99 mechanisms.must rely entirely on organizational ones." If structure and organization are both complementary approaches to phenomena and complementary aspects of the phenomena, then the question arises, Can the structural approach deal only with the structural aspect and the organizational approach only with the organizational aspect? If this is true, the scientific and the histor- ical approaches remain sharply demarcated, dividing the phenomena itself. If they are complementary ele- ments within the phenomena of social relations then they cannot be regarded as abstract vs. concrete approaches to the phenomena. It is probably the third sense that is born out in practice by Firth. The first two positions allow him to claim his identity with the natural science approach of the structural functionalist while using the third concept of social organization to deal more satisfactorily with the historical phenomena of culture. (See Firth 1956, Chapters 3-8) By recognizing that the anthropologist has a choice between three emphases in his approach to social relations, Firth shows his interest in culture. These three emphases are: social structure, social organiza- tion, and values. In values the focus is upon the quality and ends of social relations—-the material for choice and decision-~the preferences and standards of 100 judgement applied. Structure is primarily the form of_' action, values give the meaning of action. They are the basis for the individual choice and decision that is so crucial for Firth in the Operation of social organ- ization. Firth then may be seen as at once attempting to maintain the natural science structural functional position of Radcliffe-Brown but concerned with the his- torical dimension of culture with which it was inad- equate to deal. He defines culture as all learned be- havior which has been socially acquired. It is both a regulation of and an incentive to action, since choice and decision are always the expression Of individuals on the basis of held values. Radcliffe-Brown had located culture in the individual but had excluded both from his analysis by taking the natural science approach to social structure. Firth (1954:12) however, in admitting the historical dimension of culture also modifies Radcliffe-Brown's exclusion of the individual and psychology: I 0f recent years psychology has become rather a scare-word for social anthropologists in this country, and we have tended to practice a ritual avoidance of it. But I think we have created un- necessary difficulty for ourselves. The individual is of concern to Firth's analysis then insofar as his acts, choices, and decisions have social consequence. Since social organization which is a lOl result of human choice and decision in search of cul- turally defined ends (values), and since these may take place within the structure or may modify it, it would seem that Firth perceives that culture is a dynamic as- pect of personality and also that the individual may in- fluence the culture of the group. The natural history approach as originated by Boas and the natural science approach as presented by Radcliffe-Brown, though both are reactions challenging the evolutionary position, both tend to separate history from science ontologically and/or methodologically, yet both agree with the evolutionists that man and culture is natural phenomena. Just as Radin in America reacted to the problems of the historicalists by refusing to treat culture as natural phenomena, so Evans-Prtichard has responded to the problems raised by the natural science positiOn by refusing to treat culture as phe- .nomena of nature. In a Presidential lecture of the Royal Anthropological Institute he took a position which in the words of Raymond Firth "had his fellow anthro- pologists reaching for their guns." In this lecture Evans-Pritchard had gone much farther than Firth in at- tempting to take into account the 'historical' dimen- sion of culture. Clearly stated, he said, (Evans- Pritchard 1950:125): 102 The thesis I have put before you, that social anthropology is a kind of historiography, and therefore ultimately of philoSOphy or art, implies that it studies societies as moral systems and not as natural systems, that it is interested in de- sign rather than process, and that it therefore seeks patterns and not scientific laws, and in— terprets rather than explains. It is not strange that both Radin and Evans-Pritchard quote Maitland's statement ”by and by anthropology will have the choice between becOming history or nothing." In contrast to Radin, however, Evans-Pritchard (1945: 45) focuses his attention on the social system and not the individual: Psychology and social anthrOpology study different kinds of phenomena and what one studies cannot therefore be understood in terms of conclusions reached by the others. Psychology is the study of the individual. Social anthropology is the study of social life. It must be remembered that Evans-Pritchard is not ex- plicitly interested in culture as such. Though he ad- mitted the dimension of history and though the social system is a moral system and not a natural system, still it is the structure of the social system that is his concern. It seems consistent to conclude that culture is the framework within which he focuses his interest on the social structure. Therefore although his ap- proach is not one of natural science, it is abstract, in which the individual and psychological consideration are eliminated in favor of a moral system Of social relations. The relation of the individual and culture 103 is therefore not a problem to him. REACTION OF 20th CENTURY EVOLUTION: WHITE AND STEWARD That the union of history and science with social philOSOphy into a single cultural discipline of knowledge possessed some evident strains is further evidenced by the more recent efforts to carry on the evolutionary tradition in anthropology. White (l959:ix) views his work as being directly in line with Tylor saying: The theory of evolution set forth in this work does not differ one whit in principle from that eXpressed in Tylor's Anthropology in 1881, although of course the development, expression, and demonstration of the theory may-~and does--differ at some points. Evidently from White‘s view there has been no fundamental mutation in the evolution of cultural evolutionary theory since Tylor. White does however see a departure from the fundamental evolutionary position in the works of Julian Steward for in—Steward's works White sees history and science, but evolution is found in only a part. This fatal step (to White) is taken when Steward, along with both the historicalists and the functional- ists, interests himself in particular cultures rather than in culture per se. This step leads Steward in the direction of historicalism. Thus White's criticism‘ (195903116); 104 Since Steward is interested in both history and evolution as he understands these terms, he deé fines evolution--after he has transformed it into multilinear evolution--as a kind of history. 'Multilinear evolution' he says 'is inevitably concerned with historical reconstruction... it is interested in particular cultures'.... Thus he manages to have the cake Of evolutionism while he eats the cake of history. White has attempted to carve out a valid evolu- tionary approach as distinct from both natural science and history. History, science and evolution are each presented as valid scientific approaches to natural phe- nomena but are differentiated in terms of context. His- tory has a particularistic temporal context; science has a non-temporal generalizing context; evolution has a generalizing temporal context. There are valid problems for each context. When zea mays was first domesticated, if and when it was introduced into America or Asia, is an historical problem. The relationships between the aspects of a culture are conceived as problems of sci- ence. The explanation of the origins Of clan organiza- tion, writing, or currency are of evolutionary concern (White 1959czlll). Seemingly without realizing it White in an effort to preserve evolutionary tradition and in an argument against the science-history dichotomy has, in limiting evolution to the problem of origins, gone along with the science-history dichotomy and left to cultural evolution the problems of social philosophy 105 which receive a functional explanation. This is hardly the evolution of Tylor and if White held consistently to it, would allow the history and science of the early evolutionists to fall apart as surely as the positions of Boas and Radcliffe-Brown. White's origins and stages in develOpment are regarded as historical events how- ever vaguely pinpointed. Steward On the other hand, in recognizing history has attempted to tie it to a scien- tific consideration of the structure of society without develOping any "laws of history." Law and order Of his- torical development are considered in terms of ecology and level of social organization rather than on the basis of the social philosophy regarding origins and the idea of progress. In Steward's work the approaches of history and natural science become interrelated by ab- straction and generalization rather than fused together by a social philosophy. White's evolution is hardly the psychogenic evol- ution of Tylor; between culture and the individual is a crucial distinction. White (1949:159, 140) defines cul- mmeas: an organization of phenomena... acts ... Objects... ideas... and sentiments... that is dependent upon the use of symbols. ...Culture is therefore a symbolic, continuous, cumulative, and progressive process. The concept of culture is expanded into a thermo dynamic system, powered with energy from the sun, and which , 106 evolves as the amount of energy available increases and as the efficiency in its use, provided by a developing technology, increases. The relation Of culture and the individual becomes a very dogmatic position with White. In a more recent definition White (1959a:234) says, "culture, then is a class Of things and events, depend- ent upon symbolizing considered in an extra-somatic con- text." When symbols are cOnsidered in the somatic con- 'text the field is culturology. Therefore culture exists in the individual but when considered in the extra- somatic context deterministic laws are perceived as Op- erating. The individual has no control over these laws but they are determinative of his behavior. White makes a strong issue of this in arguing against free will. It is not just clear how the histories Of particular cul- tures do not invalidate the generalizations of cultural evolution when their course does not fit it, when the behavior of individuals is culturally determined;-- belief in free will being evidence of "culture evolu- tionary lag." From these considerations there may be summarized three major departures from the early cultural evolu- tionary position, the historicalism Of Boas, the func- tionalism Of Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, and the modern evolutionists, White and Steward. In each the fusion of social philosophy, history, and science has 107 tended to disintegrate. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS Many anthropologists perceive the recent devel- opments in anthropology to be in the direction of inte- gration and synthesis of positions. Some regard the in- fluence of the phenomena of culture change and of soci- eties in contact as contributing greatly to this trend. Redfield's (1955:27) own work with peasant cultures leads him to feel that anthropology is coming to be the study of "all peoples, primitive or civilized." Voget, has seen recent developments growing out of a concern with acculturation and applied anthropOlogy, as leading to a "growing realization that the concepts and tech- niques of any single social science were inadequate to the task," thus calling for greater interrelations be- tween the disciplines. A third and related recent de- velOpment is the attempt to bring together the ap- proaches of the "historicalists" and the "natural science" approaches to superorganic phenomena. Kroeber (1959:404) recognized this trend rather reluctantly: Generalizations no longer suffice; we are taught to worship abstraction; sharp sensory outlines have melted into logico-verbal ones. As our daily bread we invent hypothesis in order to test them, as we are told is the constant practice of the high tribe of physicists. 108 Kroeber had felt that (See Redfield 19550:xi): It is hard to see good coming out of a mixture of approaches whose aims are different. They need intellectual differentiation, precisely because we shall presumably penetrate further in the end by two approaches than one. Eggan (1955:485) eXpresses the desireability Of inte— grating the approaches of natural science and natural history: Indeed, some of us have come to believe that we need to adOpt the-structura1-functional approach of Brit- ish social anthrOpology and to integrate it with our traditional American interests in culture process and culture history. It was Observed above that Firth's position may be a step in this direction from the side of the British social anthropologists. Redfield (1955:25) was of a similar opinion: I will nevertheless venture to suggest that with the recognition of compound systems we now begin to take up again the long historical dimension that was abandoned by many in the second period, and come to relate our social and cultural units to their place in regional and world history. Though Evans-Pritchard has turned his back on the natural science position, he is concerned with both social struc- ture and history. In America Geertz has approached the problem by treating both the social system and the cul- tural system as synchronic systems but the dynamic interrelations between the two provide. for explanation of the diachronic dimension of change. While it appears to some that he may be seeking empirical relationship 109 between abstract systems, the work of Geertz is an at- tempt to integrate approaches. Kluckhohn (1959:149) takes the position that there is "an equally legitimate place in our subject for detailed culture histories... and for cultural evolu- tion..." Redfield (1955:50) holding that both societies and cultures may be regarded as natural systems, sees anthrOpology moving in the direction of evolutionary theory: We come, almost full circle, to consider anew the evolution of whole cultures and societies: the reg- ularities in their transformation which are of such magnitude as to allow us to regard the later forms as 'emergent,‘ as representing a new level of ex- istence. Once more our interest is both historical and generalizing. It seems that modern anthropologists are con- fronted with the problem Of relating in some way the historical and natural science apprOaches. Are they to be considered distinct but complementary approaches to sociO-cultural phenomena? Or, are they to be fused to- gether by social philosophy or by some as yet unfound means into a single intellectual attack on the phenomena Of man? At any rate, present day efforts reflect a search for the unities which characterized the period of the founding fathers. Penniman as early as 1955 ob- served these tendencies toward reintegration as similar to that just before 1859 and expressed the hOpe that 110 some "new Darwin" would arise and bring "order to the chaos" of specialized and factionated intellectual ac- tivities characterizing the twentieth century world view (Penniman 1952:242). Meanwhile the detached and con- sciously critical position of the early Greeks is to be reckoned with by the modern myth as conceived by Darwin, Tylor, and others. The conscious attempt to produce something similar to the unconscious primitive order which was destroyed has not yet succeeded. Two developments outside Of anthropology deserve mention since they have some bearing on the evolutionist world view. The first is that the development of genetics in biology has given to cultural anthropology a different model of evolutionism than the structural models of social philosophy. The second is that the development of field theory in physics has revolution- ized the seventeenth century mechanistic concept of nature. How these may influence the world view of anthrOpologists is only beginning to be manifest (See Thompson 1961). Evidence presented in this chapter points to unsolved problems in the world view of modern man-- problems which call for some kind of solution. This generalization is made from the foregoing sketch of a century of anthropological history. The history Of cosmologies built upon the world view of anthropologists 111 is an indication of fundamental problems or conflicts. Western man's fundamental detachment from nature in the world view of the Greeks laid the foundation for a further revolution in his concept of nature. At the same time the original detachment now creates problems for his attempt to conceive of himself in nature. Phil- osophy, history, and science have not been able to merge in a unitary explanation of Man, Nature and God. On the other hand, this aspiration, though unrealized continues as a cultural legacy of "Darwin's world." CONTINUATION OF STUDY The history of one hundred years of anthropology as sketched in this chapter indicates the development of certain polarites in the various world views as held by anthropologists. Four modern anthrOpologists, Kroeber, White, Firth and Evans-Pritchard, are repre- sentative Of a number of these polarites though they by no means exhaust them. If, however, these four are rep- resentative of a number of polarites, historically de- veloping out of responses to the original world view of evolutionist anthropology, they should provide a frame- work into which other anthropologists could be located or at least against which they can be compared. The succeeding chapters will deal with these four anthro- pologists in the framework and perspective develOped 112 thus far in the study. In constructing cosmologies from the world views of anthropologists, the focus is on man. The limitation to cultural anthropologists gives sharper definition to the focus in that the concern is with man as a culture produced, bearing, and producing animal. From this shall come a consideration of the concept of man, the definition of culture, the relation Of man and culture, the relation of man and culture to nature, and the re- lation in the total triad of Man-Nature-God. The _ History-Philosophy-Science outlook will be considered chiefly as they pertain to man and culture. The world view-ethos of the anthropologist as an anthropologist will be approached in a threefold manner. First, his orientation as an anthrOpologist toward the phenomena Of culture. Second, his orientation as an anthropologist toward cultures; his own and others. Third, his orientation as an anthrOpologist regarding universal and/or absolute values. CHAPTER VI A. L. KROEBER A. L. Kroeber, for some time before his death in 1960, was regarded as the dean of American anthropolo- gists. He was born in 1876 in Hoboken, New Jersey. His childhood experience gave him a background for a later interest in linguistics. He says of himself (Wilson 1958:256): I was raised bilingual, English and German, my father being an immigrant from Cologne, Germany as a boy Of ten in 1850, and the language of the household being German, of the street English. His father was a wholesale dealer in clocks. Kroeber received his B.A. degree from Columbia University in 1897; his Masters degree in English Literature came one year later. He continued graduate work at Columbia, studying under Franz Boas, receiving a Ph.D. in anthropology in 1901. Kroeber joined the. staff of the University of California in 1901. This connection he maintained throughout his long academic career, being professor emeritus at the time Of his death. His works deal with broad historical studies of civilizations as well as primitive ethnographies. He did extensive field work among the Indians of 115 114 California, New Mexico, Mexico and Peru. WORLD VIEW-EIDOS Man-Nature-God It is difficult to define separately the Man and Nature Of Kroeber's world view because the significance Of each is defined in terms Of the other. Nature takes a position that is logically as well as historically prior to man. God does not play a role as God, though Kroeber does not take the militant attitude that God must necessarily be eliminated from the world view of a scientist. In response to Leslie White's position he states:, If Bidney can leave room for God and prayer in his interpretation Of culture, or Toynbee for God and free will in his history--we11, I do not Operate that way, but I do not see why I should be con- cerned over their doing so, at least not until it is evident that their attitude affects the re- sults Of their studies (1952:115, 116). Kroeber's focus Of world view as a scientist of man then does not admit God but on the other hand is not adverse to this inclusion, providing this inclusion does not make a significant difference to the man and nature world view constructed without God. The 'nature' of Kroeber is the mechanistic de- terministic nature of the 17th century world view, though greatly extended in its scope, and as shall be 115 shown, in one sense modified. It is a nature within which are three important ontological distinctions. That is, nature is represented by three levels of organiza- tion: the inorganic level of non-living matter, the organic level of life including man, and the superorganic which is the superpsychic level of culture. Inherent in this concept of nature is the relation Of man to nature, culture to nature, and man to culture which will be con- sidered later. It is important to Observe that while Kroeber is a consciously committed determinist, he rejects determination on the diachronic dimension of natural history, which for him includes man. This is the crux of Kroeber's rejection of the evolutionist postulate. Though Kroeber accepts the evolutionist ex- planation of biological man as legitimating man's position in nature, he hastens to add: This is not an insinuation that there was any pre- determination of such a sequence of developmental steps leading to ourselves. That the steps hap- pened is all that we can say... Conceivably, a quite different series of evolutionary advances might have made possible the coming on the stage Of a type as skilled, intelligent, and successful as man, or even superior to him, but different from him (1948:14). Kroeber's rejection Of evolutionary laws on the level of culture is consistently held. Referring to prehistoric stages of human development, he wrote that "these do not represent any law of nature, but only a statistical 116 average of variable events in total human history" (Ibigz652). In a comprehensive treatment of the his- torical data of several civilizations he concluded, "... I see no evidence of any true law in the phenomena dealt with. Nothing cyclical, regularly repetitive, or necessary“ (Kroeber 1944:761). His position was un- changed in 1957 when he presented patterns of change in the style of American women's dress. Kroeber consciously refused to generalize from these patterns to style ' changes in any other culture and added, "Nor would it be sound to assert that we had here an invariable law of history" (1957:25). Man is defined as a natural phenomena--natural as Opposed to any spiritual concept (Kroeber 1948:841): Man, to every anthropologist, is an animal in a, given world of nature: that and nothing more-~not an animal with a soul or immortality or destiny or anything else attached to him beforehand... This position seems to Kroeber to be necessary to the. scientific world view. Yet having once thus identified Man.with the lower animals in the world of Nature a dif- ference in kind is recognized between them. It is cul- ture rather than the 'soul' which differentiates them (Kroeber 1952:27): The distinction between animal and man which counts is not that of the physical and mental, which is one "of relative degree, but that of the organic and - social which is one of kind. The beast has mentality, and we have bodies; but in civilization man has 117 something that no animal has. In Kroeber's thinking man has a psychic-organic superiority over the animal which is only a difference in degree--but it is a difference that produces culture and as a culture bearing animal he is different in kind. Yet there seems to be a problem here. The difference in kind is between the organic and the social, i.e. cul- tural, but man occupies both. It is necessary now to consider Kroeber's def- inition or culture (1952:156, 157): The essential characteristic things about a culture are its forms and patterns, the interrelations of these into an organization, and the way these parts, and the whole, work or function as.a group of human beings lives under them. A culture is a way of habitual acting, feeling, and thinking channeled by a society out of potential ways of living. ...The combined affect-idea system of a culture at once reflects the habitual ways Of action of members of the society, validates these ways to themselves, and to an extent controls and modifies the ways. It is in this affect-laden idea system that in a certain sense, the core of a culture is usually considered to reside: in it lodge its values, norms, and standards--its ethos and its eidos. Since culture occupies the level of the superorganic (superpsychic) in nature and it works and functions as human beings live under it, there arises the problem of the relation of man to culture. Kroeber explicitly states that the locus of culture is in the minds of individuals living in society. "There is little doubt that the active causes Of history must reside chiefly 118 in persons" (Ibid:148). "... Culture ultimately exists, or 'resides,’ only in the behavior, the ideas and feel- ings, and the products of the societies Of man" (Kroeber 1948:619). In spite of the personal locus of culture it is held to have a superpersonal character be- yond any explanation on the purely psychological level. Thus the concentration of genius in periods of history is interpreted in terms of culture florescence rather than a superior genetic endowment Of individuals. Since culture may have a continuity over time unbroken by the coming and going of individuals, and even of societies, it is regarded by Kroeber as having an ontological status distinct from either though empirically it is only found in association with both. The question arises then, Is the relation between culture and the individual a deterministic one? Kroeber (1952:899) indicates that this has been somewhat problematical to him: With long range, the individual, even the outstand- ing one fades from view... With this a deterministic view tends to creep in. Before long, one finds him- self a determinist, like Tolstoy. I was consciously so, for decades. I am less sure now... My own theory of deterministic pattern realization and exhaustion contains a concealed factor of striving and will, in the individuals through whom the realization is achieved. A further statement, "my own comparison of culture to a coral reef should have warned me against too facile a determinism," indicates that the non-deterministic 119 relation between the individual and culture is related to the denial of any diachronic determinism. Thus Kroeber denies determinative causes in the develOpment of culture and any determinative relationship between culture and the individual yet, "in spite of (culture's) highly special properties it must always be construed as within nature" (1952:10). This is the crux of Kroeber's position. Free humanistic creativity is quite accept- able so long as it is regarded in nature. This is the basic question Kroeber (1956:299) raises in regards to Bidney's free will position: It is therefore not because I wish to deny creativ- ity that I raise the point of what Bidney means with the use Of the term... one wonders whether he is not accepting free creativity as something outside the realm of nature. Such a view was once traditional in the humanities... If there are any anthropolo- gists or other scientists that hold this position, they are few. I think Bidney owes us an answer to the question: Is his free humanistic creativity in nature or outside it? Kroeber is then seen to reject the deterministic char- acter of the seventeenth century 'Nature' when the dia- chronic dimension Of natural history--biological and cultural man-~is introduced into it. Evolution is re- garded as a natural but not determined process. History-Science-Philosophy Kroeber (1952:18, 19) most explicitly rejected the fusion of history, science, and philosophy in the 120 evolutionist world view: Every explanation of an origin in anthropology is based on three processes of thought which are un- objectionable logically but are contrary to evol- utionary principles and the countless facts that support these principles. First is the assumption, implied in the word ori 'n, that, before the begin- ning of the phenomena eprained, itself and its cause were absent; second is the belief that a suddenly arising cause singly produced the phe- nomenon; and third is the idea that this cause ceased as suddenly as it had sprung up and that its product has remained, unaffected by other causes, unaltered but for wear and tear, to the present day. Here is an explicit refusal to allow a philosophical position to encompass the diachronic dimension of cul- ture history into the determinate, mechanistic world view. This statement makes clear that Kroeber perceives the problem involved in fusing elements of history, philosophy, and science. His writings--which span three score years--show that he consistently holds to differ— entiating history and science as distinct methodological approaches. Philosophy also plays its own specialized role. The refusal to accept the diachronic determinism which evolution had introduced into anthropology plus making the ontological difference in levels of nature preserved the distinction in the methodological ap- proaches of the pre-Darwinian world view for Kroeber. That is, he observes that the natural history approach is most fruitful on the superorganic level while the 121 natural science approach is most fruitful on the inor- ganic level. Quite clearly science as an approach to the physical world and history as an approach to man is preserved here despite their both being presented as 'natural' phenomena. Psychic man is detached from mater- ial reality as he is also from the historical phenomena of culture. Kroeber has clung to the man-and-culture-in- nature contribution of the evolutionist while rejecting determinism on the diachronic dimension of history. He has thus escaped the situation in which the present order becomes the key to the explanation of its own origin but has held on to the legitmation of studying man "as the astronomer studies stars" etc. It is quite evident that Kroeber has maintained the basic distinction of the world view of the Greeks and of science in opposition to that Of the evolutionists. The avoidance of philosOphy, typical of science, also characterizes Kroeber, which for his focus on the superorganic level results in his negative position rel- ative to theory. Philosophical assumptions are impor- tant in the development of theory but Kroeber (1952:5) says, "... I am not a formal theoretician." The accep- tance of the man-and-culture-in-nature postulate Of the evolutionist, since he rejects evolution as a determinate historic process, has resulted in maintaining the basic 122 distinction of the Greeks and Of the 17th century world view but arranged now in a redefined nature. It leaves him, however, with a recognized but unresolved problem in his world view. Within this nature of man, culture, rocks, stars and electrons there seems to be different or heterogeneous ‘natures' (Ibid:65): It is in the nature of things--I do not pretend to explain why--that in the inorganic realm the pro- cessual approach of science has yielded most results, but as we pass successively into the realm of the organic, psychic, and social-cultural-"historical," this approach encounters more and more difficulties and its harvest diminishes. WORLD VIEW-ETHOS The attitude with which.Kroeber approaches the phenomena of culture is that of the natural scientist. For Kroeber a common attitude identifies him with the biologist (Kroeber 1948:8#1): This attitude may be called an insatiable curiosity, a thirst for knowledge... they agree in wanting to find out about these works and bodies as they actu- ally exist in the world of nature, without precon- ceptions and without primary ulterior motive Of ex- isting philosophy, theology, politics, or phil- anthropy. Kroeber's 'scientific' orientation consists chiefly in his detachment from the phenomena and in regarding it as natural as Opposed to supernatural. His cautious or con- servative, if not negative, attitude toward philOSOphi- cal assumptions, abstraction and theorizing indicates that he is as he says himself a "natural historian of 125 culture." This feeling about the study of culture he maintained throughout his career and is manifest in re- ‘sponse to recent developments in anthropology (Kroeber 1959:414): Now, maturity has stolen upon us... we find our- selves classified with the social sciences... we are taught to worship abstraction... As our daily bread we invent hypotheses in order to test them, as we are told is the constant practice of the high tribe of physicists. If at times some of you, like myself, feel somewhat ill at ease in the house of social science, do not wonder: we are changelings therein; our true paternity lies elsewhere. Kroeber's attitude toward specific cultures and their values is expressed first of all by the Objectiv- ity of description which his natural history approach requires. Theoretical preconceptions and philOSOphical assumptions are guarded against as potential biases. Secondly, his detachment as an anthropologist is mani- fest in his non-applied position. He speaks of himself as, one who spent his life following anthropology as a purely intellectual pursuit and has conscient— iously avoided active practical decisions based on professional equipment--"action research"... (1952:150). The difficult--if not impossible--position of complete value neutrality when posed against its op- posite the anthropologically tabooed 'ethnocentrism' also has some implications for the ethos of the anthro- pologist. That is ethnocentrism is recognized as char- acterizing all primitive cultures, and possibly to some 124 extent all others as well, is for the anthropologist a "wrong” atititude. It violates the scientific value of objectivity. Furthermore, as a member of Western Civil- ization he would like to make a positive contribution by the modification if not the elimination of these atti- tudes. But even in so doing the "non-ethnocentric" value becomes automatically either transcultural or an extra-cultural or a culturally superior criteria of progress. Since anthropologists as human beings are products of a culture and as a professional subculture are studying another culture, and since they must com- municate their understanding of a foreign culture into the understandings of their own, they might be expected to have some position regarding transcultural univer- sals and/or extra cultural absolutes. This position should in some sense be a part of their ethos. Cultural relativity is a position to which Kroeber attaches a positive value (1952:157): An absolute standard involves two qualities. First it must be extra-natural, or supernatural. to be an a priori absolute. And second, ethnocentricity is implied in the elation of any one actual standard as absolute. By contrary, standards or value systems Conceived as parts of nature are necessarily, tempor- al and spatial, phenomenal, relative and comparative. That the first condition to a scientific study of culture is the barring Of ethnocentrism has been a basic canon of anthropology for three quarters of a century. Yet Kroeber does hold to some value positions that he does not regard as ethnocentric. After 125 admitting that progress is an idea held in Western cul- ture but not shared by primitive cultures (Kroeber 1948: 296, 546, 547) three criteria for progress for cultures viewed transculturally—-that is across space and over time--are presented. The first of these is the ability to distinguish subjective experience from Objective. Primitive peoples either fail to make the distinction or give subjective experiences a surrealistic interpretation. Since in our culture only psychotic peoples do this, Kroeber argues we have here an 'objective' criterian of progress (1948:298). . The second criterion for the evaluation of pro- gress which is negative toward primitive cultures is their unabashed preoccupation with bodily functions and the disregard for human life. Kroeber Observes that mOdern religions have a tendency to rise above this primitive level. Finally the cumulative aspects of technology, mechanics and science favor modern cultures as against the primitive. It does not appear that Kroeber regards his criteria of progress as either ethnocentric nor relativistic. Though giving an ex- plicit statement of a relativistic position, his treat- ment of progress leaves his readers at least to infer that there are standards of judgement not wholly limited to a single cultural context. Logically 126 following from.this implication is either that Western civilization as a culture has some transcultural ab- solutes or that these absolutes are in some sense extra- cultural. Kroeber (1952:6) is quite aware of this prob- lem for he states: ... There is a real and profound problem: that of fixed panhuman, if not absolute values. This problem is only beginning to come to the consciousness of anthropologists, who have done most to stress a rel- ativist principle. It is touched only by implica- tion in this book. My conviction is that value- judgments as between the values of various cultures are possible... The important requisite in this problem of transcending values would seem paradox- ically to be prolonged and increasing deep compar- ison of value systems-~in other words of cultures. It may be concluded from this statement of Kroeber's . that the transcending value can comeonly from the "culture" that can pursue such a comparative study. A later statement would indicate that Kroeber believes that there are universal transcultural values of in- herent validity, as Opposed to universal values estab- lished by mere cross cultural statistical commonality (1956:501): I believe the probability is high that there are universal human values; I distrust the motivation in seeking them; I do not believe they can be established by random enumeration. It is evident that Kroeber finds it difficult to hold to a consistent ethos in terms Of his statement of cultural relativity. 127 CONCLUSION Kroeber's world view may be briefly summarized by saying that he has preserved the basic characteristics and distinctions of the Greek and scientific world view while essentially rejecting the evolutionist view, de- spite his devotion to the man—and-culture—in-nature postulate Of the evolutionists. For him history and science remain quite distinct methodological approaches to one's world and philosophical considerations are kept distinct from both. History is at least a more fruitful approach tO man, while science is more successful in con- fronting the aspect of the world that the Greeks and Galileo called nature. Kroeber's "levels of nature," rejection of determinism on the diachronic dimension of culture and his distinction between man and culture have served to solve the dilemma of world views in favor of the Greek foundation, and develOpment Of science as Op- posed to the convolution of evolution. His including all within nature only makes for a different nature-- though in Kroeber a clear comprehensive difinition Of nature is not evident. Kroeber shares the ethos of evol- utionary progress but this is one point Of harmony be- tween the foundations of Western world view and that of the evolutionists. CHAPTER VII LESLIE WHITE Leslie White's early intellectual interests were in physics and astronomy; Barnes (l960:xv) speaks of the encouragement which his father gave him in this direc- tion: These desires and decisions he developed from read- ing a small book his father had used in college, Natural PhilosOphy, then the usual designation for pfisics... About the same time, his father took ' him outdoors one night on the family farm near Lane, Kansas, to show and explain to him Halley's Comet, which was flaming across the sky in 1910. His experiences in the navy in World war I turned his . interest toward psychology and the social sciences and the desire "to find out why peoples behave the way they do" (Ibid:xvi). During his first two years at Louisiana State University he majored in history and political science but did not find the answers to his problems. He then transferred to Columbia University and to psy- chology, sociology and philosophy. He continued in these fields of study at Columbia, receiving his Bachelor's degree in 1925 and his Masters degree in 1924. During this time he took some courses at The New School for Social Research in New York City and it was here he began his studies in anthropology under one of Boas's former '128 129 students, Alexander Goldenweiser. White did his doctoral work at the University of Chicago where his interest eventually shifted from sociology to anthropology, and here he studied under two more of Boas' former students, Fay-Cooper Cole and Edward Sapir. After receiving his Doctorate in Anthropology, a number of factors (See Barnes 1960) led him to turn from the Boasian tradition and to become the leading protagonist of evolutionarist anthropology. His field work has been done among the Pueblos of the Southwest. WORLD VIEW-EIDOS Man-Nature-God The world view Of White is Nature dominated; a nature materialistically, and deterministically conceived. White (1959:ix) regards his own view as basically identi-- cal with that Of the founding fathers of anthropology: The theory of evolution set forth in this work does not differ one whit in principle from that expressed in Tylor's Anthropology in 1881... White has made a conscious effort to incorporate the dia- chronic dimension Of culture history into the mechanistic world view which we have shown to be the cultural heritage of seventeenth century science. Also he has attempted to maintain the basic detachment of the Greek foundations of science. 150 The choice of materialist ontological assumptions may appear to eliminate God from the triad of White's ‘world view; God has ontological existence only in nature and that in the form of a cultural belief. Even this ex- istence is regarded as characterizing a low level Of cul- tural development and is due to ultimate extinction by the operation of the evolutionary processes of nature. Regarding this element of his world view, White carries on.a dedicated crusade against any expression of cul- tural regression as for example "With the re-introduction of God into ethnological theory, Bidney sets a new low in the present trend toward regression" (White 1949a:108, 109). The domination ijNature which characterizes all of his theory is expressed relative to Man as well as God. This comes out when he is at all confronted with ultimates as in the following statement (Ibigs59l): The cosmos does little know nor will it long re- member what man has done here on this tiny planet. The eventual extinction of the human race--for come it will sometime--will not be the first time that a species has died out, nor will it be an event of very great terrestrial significance. Implied is that the cosmos or nature will go on in its own eternal way. Nature produced man and then through man, God; their temporal creation as well as eventual ex- tinction is conceived as expressions of nature's eternal dominion. Nature creates a new part of itself and ~15l ultimately destroys that part which it creates, i.e., man and God; the rest is uncreated or eternal. White follows Kroeber in conceiving of three levels in nature: the inorganic, the organic, and the super- organic. The organic and the superorganic, however, are conceived as products of the evolutionary processes of nature--and they too are conceived as subjects of ulti- .mate doom. The inorganic alone is viewed as without be- ginning and without end. It is important that we pause at this point to Ob- serve that White's 'inorganic level' is basically the nature of Galileo and Newton, and that its eternal char- acter rises from two complementary sources, the postulate of materialism and the world view of a universe unbounded in space and time. To this "basic nature" with all of its "forces" governing the movement or behavior of all bodies within it, White has added the phenomena of life, man and culture. He has accepted theman-and-culture-inenature postulate.. By adding,thus, a diachronic dimension the "forces? which account for the order in inorganic matter must now account also for the development of new levels of order and, as we shall see, new "forces" which account for the order on higher levels. Insofar as these evolu- tionary develOpments in nature are temporal develOpments, as Opposed to the eternal source, man and culture still at least hold a basic distinction from the inorganic. l“. _ i im“. - 152 The 'Nature' of White's world view is character- ized by'a thorough going determinism-~determinism with a vengeance. The following aspects Of determinism can be analyzed from his writings: 1) 2) 5) 4) 5) The eternal order of the inorganic is a self determinate order. The development Of the organic and superorganic within nature is the product of the determinant forces of nature which necessarily must have ex- isted before these levels were brought into ex- istence. Each of these levels, inorganic, organic and superorganic now represent deterministic forces regarding the concrete bodies within their spheres. Development within the superorganic or cultural is governed and determined by the "cultural forces" operating on this level. The behavior of the human individual is a product Of determinism on the organic and the super- organic levels (White 1949azl6l). We interpret White's world view as conceiving man under secondary and tertiary orders of determinism in nature. That is, the organic level is a product of determinative forces Operating on the inorganic level. But with the production Of the organic level were introduced a new . 153 determinative system of forces which directed the course of organic evolution to the next level attained in man (White 1959b:5. 5): In the course of the evolution of primates man ap- peared when the ability to symbol had been HEVeloped and became capable of eXpression... Man and culture originated similtaneously; this by definition. Thus man owes his existence as a bio-cultural being to organic evolutionary forces; he owes his cultural state to the Operation of cultural evolutionary forces and both combine to determine his present behavior. Culture "is governed by its own laws” (White 1949a:540) but culture determines the behavior of individuals as when the Jap- anese general commits hara-kiri (Igig:97). White's theory Of evolutionary development within the superorganic contains a theory of the develOpment of world views. This most clearly characterizes his own world view because he feels that his culturology rests at the pinnacle of this develOpment. White confesses this--a1beit in a modest manner-~(White 1949a:556): It should be made clear that if an adequate under- standing should come about as a consequence of a science of culture it would not have been "us" who achieved it but our culture. White describes the primitive world view as being char- acterized by a fundamental attachment between the ob- server and the observed. This is similar to the mythical world view as described by Redfield and as presented in this study. Yet White regards all belief in 154 supernatural beings as mythical and does not recognize as does Redfield the fundamental detachment regarding the deity as expressed among the Hebrews. He theorizes that man's primitive attachment is in the form Of pro- jecting his own ego on the external world. Thus (Ibid: 5989 599): The first men interpreted things and events in terms of their own psyches. They were not aware of their standpoint of interpretation, however; on the con- trary, they insisted emphatically that the minds to which the events of their experience were attributed were not their own, but those Of spirits, of gods or demons. They were, however, a projection of the human ego upon the world. Thus the whole cosmos, the entire range of experience, was interpreted as the expression of mind and spirit, of desire, will and purpose. The evolution of world view which is synonymous with the growth of science becomes a matter of progressive detach- ment of the self from the not self. Its development is conceived in the terms of the following law (Ibid:69): Science emerges first and matures fastest in fields‘ where the determinants of human behavior are weakest' and most remote; conversely, science appears latest and matures slowest in those portions of our exper- ience where the most intimate and powerful determin- ants of our behavior are found. Because of this law the sciences are said to have de- veloped in the following order. Astronomy, physics, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, psychology, sociology and last Of all culturology. While our purpose at this point is to present White's world view rather than to make criticism of it, one point here is difficult to 155 'understand. The projection of man's ego on to the phys- ical world about him could understandably result in the "animation” of that world. A detachment then would re- sult in the de-animation of this sphere of the world view. But, what is projected into what to account for man's an- imate and mentalistic concept of himself? Just what the 'ego' is in White's usage is not clear. White conceives the progressive detachment of the observer to finally in- clude culture. The parallel de-animation, de-supernatural- ization and de-mentalization of the explanation Of the universe is held to be synonomous with the naturalization Of its explanation and as a mark of the self-other detach- ment of the scientific approach.~ The course of this de- tachment follows Comte's three stages: theological, metaphysical, scientific. The theological is the myth- ical or attached stage. The metaphysical stage, "en- tities, essences and principles were called upon" to take the place Of spirits and minds to account for events. Yet here, White is referring only to the answers to the why question of philosOphy. He does not state that these principles are the projection from the psyche of the ob- server, but only that they are the second stage of de- tachment. At least the final stage Of detachment is science where events are explained in terms Of other events and the detachment of the observer is held to be complete. The course of the evolution of world view 156 reaches its highest point then with the develOpmentof a science of culture. That is when man attains an ob- jective detachment from that which "is the most intimate and powerful determinate of his behavior." Observer- object detachment from culture then is the peak Of cul- tural develOpment--a world view of complete detachment. In White's theory of culture the development of world view is geared into more basic cultural levels-- the sociological and the technological, the latter pro- viding the fundamental dynamics of culture change. Philosophies are determined by technologies 1) directly and 2) indirectly through social systems (White 1959bz24). Through the concept of energy the technological level is tied to the organic level of nature whose dependence upon the sun in turn, dynamically relates it to the inorganic level. Culture is an organization of phenomena dependent upon symboling. Its place in nature is clearly outlined (White 1949a:166, 167): ‘ Culture is an elaborate mechanism whose function is to make life secure and continuous for groups of human beings. In order to perform these functions culture must harness energy and put it to work... Culture is therefore a thermodynamic system in a mechanical sense. Culture grows in all its.aspects-- ideological, sociological, and technological-~when and as the amount Of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, and as the means of expending energy is improved... A culture is therefore a dynamic system (powered by the natural forces which 157 it harnesses) that behaves and grows in terms Of its own principles and laws... It may be regarded as a system sui generis. Culture then is not only a product of evolution progres- sing from the lower levels of nature but the laws of its own present develOpment rest upon and are empowered by the organic and inorganic. Since the world view or' ideological aspect Of culture represents the tap level of culture and the ultimate development here is the funda- mental Observer-object detachment, we may generalize White's evolutionary world view into the following state- ment: The ultimate in evolution of nature is a funda— mental detachment within itself. The implications of this for a consistent world view will be reserved for the conclusion to this chapter. Two Observations must be made regarding White's concept of the relation of man and culture to dispell' false impressions that are sometimes left from an in- complete reading Of his works and may possibly result from the treatment here. The first erroneous impression is that culture is a force mystically governing the actions of men while having no real connection with them or locus in them. White's symbol based concept of cul- ture discredits that incorrect view (1959a:251): When things and events dependent upon symbolizing are considered and interpreted in terms of their re- lationship to human organisms, they may prOperly be called human behavior... When things and events 158 dependent upon symboling are considered and inter- preted ... in terms of their relations to one another ... we may call them culture. White does not deny the psychological connection of cul- ture, "... in activity culture is inseparable from human beings” (Ibidz242). Culture however is more than a meth- odological construct for White because "context of con- sideration" i.e. symbols with symbols, is an ontological reality having its own laws of development. Perhaps White is at fault for leaving the impres- sion that he believes man to be a passive puppet within the controlling forces Of culture. His arguments against free will may sometimes be taken this ways In fact, he speaks of Bidney as "the passive medium" of a reactionary cultural trend (1949az96). But White does not conceive Of man as an automaton. The fact that he does not be- lieve man free to manipulate and change his culture does not lead to a choiceless being within culture (Ibid:174): To take this view of the relation between the in- ‘ dividual and the culture process is not to regard the former as an organism, as a purely passive thing... We are merely saying that a consideration Of the dy- namic character of this organism does not help us to explain the form and content of its reactions and responses. The organism does the reacting, of course. But, in human behavior, the specific nature of its reactions is determined not by the organism but by cultural elements serving as stimuli. History-Science-Philosophy White regards science as a "kind Of human behavior" and therefore speaks Of it as sciencing. It is a dealing 159 "with experience according to certain assumptions and with certain techniques" (White 1949a:5). Science is to be distinguished from art-in that science deals with partic- ulars in terms Of universals while art deals with uni- versals in terms of particulars. Both art and science . serve to "render experience intelligible" and thus are aspects of world view; Science is viewed as "a way of in- .terpreting reality, rather than as an entity in itself, as a segment of that reality" (Ibids6). All reality is conceived as structural in terms of space and time. As a result sciencing takes on three forms (123g28): "One which grasps the space-time property of reality in its entirety" (evolution) "and two subsidiary and derivative ways..." which are history and structural functionalism (called by others science). ,History deals with the time dimension alone, while what is ordinarily called science deals with the non-temporal dimension alone. For White, history and science are but two subsidiary approaches to all phenomena of which evolution is the combinatory ap- proach, and they all are 'sciencing.‘ White's sciencing encompasses history, science, and philosophy. Thus he says (M39): There is no antagonism nor even distinction between history and science: history is simply one way of sciencing whether it be geology_or in sociology. 140 White thus recognizes the difference between the temporal and the nontemporal approach but in contrast to Kroeber feels that each are equally applicable to the three levels of nature. A difference in the success of approach is not a function of ontological differences in nature but a lack of cultural develOpment in the observer. The com, bined temporal formal approach of evolution is held to be an ultimate in sciencing (Ibidz2l): As social science matures, the basic concept of science and philosOphy, that reality is temporal- formal in character, will win its way on the cul- tural level as it has upon the biological and inanimate levels. Since White leaves the specific problems of history, and those Of the structural functional outof the generaliz- ing, temporal-formal approach of evolution he is left with little more than such problems as those of origins and development, nature of reality, the ultimate course or direction of history--all of which are quite dis- tinctly philOSOphical problems. It is in this sense that the history-science-philosophy triad remains quite distinct confrontations in White's world view in contrast to the early evolutionists. The features Of the Greek foundations of world view show through most clearly at this point. 141 WORLD VIEW‘ETHOS White's world viewbethos is similar to Kroeber's ~ in that the detachment ideal is paramount with respect to the phenomena of culture. He regards the phenomena of culture as similar to the weather, i.e. something that can be predicted but not controlled (White 1949az555): If the trend of cultural evolution is away from private prOperty and free enterprise why strive to perpetuate them? If it could be shown that international wars will continue as long as in- dependent, sovereign nations exist, then certain delusions now popular would find less nourishment and support. One cannot help but conclude here that knowledge Of the evolutionary process is to become a part of the process and yet even this consciousness cannot be directive of the process. White has no lOgical problem about his theory introducing biases into his observation and ex- planation of reality as does Kroeber or Boas, because culturology is itself the farthest advance in scientific detachment. White shares with Kroeber a non-applied attitude, yet there is here a difference. Kroeber's interest is in knowledge for knowledge sake. White, On the other hand, values the usefulness of the knowledge of culture so that man may better adjust to reality; though.mot for the pur- pose of effecting any change in social reality. The latter for White is an impossibility (Ibids554, 545): 142 It may seen remarkable that a great class of cit- izens who cannot even control the dimensions Of their own skirts will nevertheless organize them- selves into clubs, to administer the affairs of the world. To call upon science, the essence of which is ac- ceptance Of the principles of cause and effect and determinism, to support a philOSOphy of free will, is fairly close to the height of absurdity... The belief that man can work his will upon nature and man alike if onl he has the right formulas once flourished In primitive society as magic. Quite clearly White does not share the observer attach- ment to nature characteristic of the primitive mythical world view. Yet he mistakes magic as a matter of manip- ulation over nature forgetting that for the primitive this is within 'nature.‘ Considering in this light White's attitude is also one of subservience and adjust- ment to the 'nature' Of his own world view even as the primitive attitude was one of maintaining and obeying his. However, if White's view is in truth the farthest advance toward objective reality, then his judgement of primitive attachment is neither ethnocentric nor ego- ecentric judgement. This consideration leads us directly to attitudes relative to transcultural or extra-cultural universals and/or absolutes. White does not hesitate to brand any mythical-religious world view as one Of delusion and his own as a reality which squares with the facts. The evol- ution of world view is conceived as movement from delu- sion to reality, therefore an absolute reality exists in 145 the course of cultural development. No naturalistic ex- planation is given why or how culture should originate in the error of myth. In White's world view absolute reali- ty becomes the basis for the ultimate good. The highest value is found in perfect adjustment to the reality of nature. This reality can be known only in cOOperating with the evolutionary process of world view leading to a totally detached and unbiased position of the observer. Here again a reader of White may raise the question as to why man in his 'original' state is such a self de- ceiver as to populate his own world with gods who in turn distort and bias his conception of reality. At any rate White can, with self consistency, apply the absolute standard of reality and value to all cultures without being ethnocentric, for his evolutionary framework pro- vides him with a universal, transcultural absolute, i.e. the absolute tOward which all cultures in all places and times have moved and are moving by the laws of nature. CONCLUSION In White is found a dedicated effort to find in the cultural legacy of the Greek transformation, the seventeenth century revolution, and the convolution of Darwin and Tylor a comprehensive, consistent world view. The result has been twofold. First, the basic elements of the Greek and scientific foundations of Western 144 civilization have prevailed to the modification of the evolutionary position. And, second, insofar as the evol- utionary postulates have been joined with the basic fac- tors of the Western world view they have produced incon- gruencies within White's system. The modification in the basic position of the early cultural evolutionists has been observed to be at least twofold. The first is the fundamental detachment of man and culture. For Tylor culture was a psychogenic phe- nomenon--as it was even for Boas. But for Tyler its de- velOpment was in terms of the laws of psychic development; for White culture evolves according to cultural laws with- out consideration of psychic man. Secondly, White con- ceives of a history whose course may not conform to the generalizations of evolution and a science that is dis- tinct from history in its approach to all nature includ- ing man. His evolutionary approach becomes neither his- tory nor 'structural functional' science. Thus the history-philosophybscience convolution is not truly main- tained. The basic incongruencies in White's world view show up between his ontological position and his metho- dological position. Ontologically, White has succeeded consistently in conceiving all phenomena within a common order Of nature. The distinctions of levels within this order represent no necessary incongruence. Herein he 145 has followed the evolutionary postulate in a materialist framework consistently. Methodologically, White has persistently held to the position of science as a "way of behaving, as a way of interpreting reality, rather than as an entity in itself, as a segment of that real- ity," which is characterized by a sharp self-object de- tachment. His methodological position is a consistent development of the Greek and seventeenth century founda- tions Of the world view of modern western man. White attempts to weave his methodological and ontological positions together in a cultural evolutionary theory of the development of scientific, self-object detachment. When this theory joins together the evolutionary onto- logical view with the scientific methodological view sciencing becomes at once behavior that is governed by culture and yet not "a segment Of that reality which it is interpreting." White has spun a net which he admits encompasses himself, his activity as a scientist, and the product of his activity, i.e. culturology; all within the world of nature. At the same time he stands detached in a funda- mental self—external world detachment. It does not solve the problem to merely distinguish the methodological position from the ontologica1--which is a valid methodo- logical procedure--because his theory encompasses both in one grand ontological net. The methodological fiction 146 used by Kroeber and many others would in White's system be itself a distortion of the reality of nature. It does not seem to solve the problem to ask of White, ”What is this self, this ego, which stands detached!" This is an Ontological question and the only answer we can receive from White is that it isn't mind, for mind is only a mis- nomer, a nominalization of the activity of minding. And if the self has ontological status it must'exist in the world of nature. However, from White's writings we can conclude that the self is something which has a world view because it may either have a world view based upon its own projection into the external world or one based on a detachment from it. One may also infer from White that this self has existed in nature for some time out Of tune with the nature of Which it was a part, in fact, is inherently incongruous with nature for the projection of itself onto this nature, according to White, results in a distortion or a departure from the reality of nature. In other words, White has implicit difficulties in his attempt to encompass the Observer in nature. These in-. congruities of world view proceed from White's evolution- ist attempt to place man and culture within nature when the framework of the world view of western man is in- volved. CHAPTER VIII RAYMOND FIRTH Raymond Firth, a native Of New Zealand was born in 1901. Unlike Kroeber or White who did their undergrad- uate work in other fields, Firth began his anthropological studies at the undergraduate level at Auckland University College. Studies for his doctorate were done at the London School of Economics when he and Evans-Prichard were Malinowski's first two pupils. Except for two years, 1950-1952, which were spent at the University of Sidney, Firth's academic position has been at the London School of Economics where since 1944 he has been Professor. In 1928-1929 Firth did field work in the Solomon Islands including Tikopia. Social research surveys were conducted in West Africa in 1947, in New Guinea in 1951, and in TikOpia in 1952. Firth.served in the Naval In- telligence Division of the Admirality from 1941-1944. WORLD VIEW-EIDOS Nature-Man-God Raymond Firth makes a role distinction between himr self as an anthropologist and as a member of society which ( 147 148 is important in considering his world view. This distinc— tion is explicitly drawn as he considers the role of the anthropologist in his approach to religion (1959:156): But while as private citizens we have the right to discretion, to keep our own counsel in these matters, as anthropologists whose job is to link conclusions to premises by processes of lOgical reasoning, we can claim no immunity for our premises... as far as an anthropologist's own approach is involved, we are more interested in the assumptions he actually makes for the purposes of his analysis than with his own personal view point. In attempting to construct a cosmology from the world view of Firth the concern will be limited to that of Firth as an anthropologist. This, I would conclude, is in con- trast to White whose citizen and scientist roles require no sharp differentiation. In speaking of "assumptions for purposes of analysis" a character Of Firth's world view is suggested that will be born out by further ob- servation and that is the methodological aspect Of his world view receives much stronger emphasis than the on- tological. For this and other reasons he does not find himself in the kind of problems as does White. One of these other reasons is that he does not commit himself to a monistic philosOphy Of materialism. As a student of Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, Firth is part of an intellectual tradition that flatly rejected cultural evolution as "conjectural history." One may infer from reading his works that the issue is 149 so settled as to not deserve attention. Yet, he lists as one of anthropology's three debts to T. Huxley (Firth 1959:129): his classic work, Man's Place in Nature (1865) helped to free anthrOpologists to study human beings by the same methods which had already been used to study “other animals... However, it will be observed that nature for Firth is little more than verbal legitimation for a scientific ap- proach to the study of man. The works of Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski in Eng- land, as well as Boas in America, greatly modified the usage of the concept of nature as used by Darwin, Tylor, Huxley and others,and the crux of this difference is found in the philosophy of the evolutionary postulate. The as- sumptions Of Tylor and others had given a diachronic dimension to the determinate order of nature. Culture was phenomena in this over all order. By rejecting the evolutionist assumption the focus shifts from culture as phenomena in nature to societies and cultures as natural systems. Redfield (1955:19) commenting on this shift observes: In the first decades of this century anthrOpologists shifted their attention from a consideration of cul- ture in a total sense to the study Of particular cultures or societies, and as they did so they came to conceive of each as a natural system. In the more general treatices on anthropology by Tylor (1871) and by Marett (1912) one reads nothing about the order intrinsic to any particular society or culture... 150 The shift in focus is from the order in nature to the natural order of a particular system. Its 'nature' is found in its system and if it is a system it can be studied by the methods of science. Thus Firth affirms, "The notion of a system is basic to our study Of society." Firth is aware that "system" is hardly more than a meth- odological postulate and where a model is constructed of it, it has no necessary connection with empirical reality. After observing Radcliffe-Brown's "emphasis... upon the formal qualities inherent in the structure of groups as systems" he goes on to say (Firth 1951b:481): Here comes in the question of theoretical models for analysis. One of the difficulties of much British structural analysis in social anthropology so far has been the unwillingness or inability of the the- orist to state clearly how far he was describing himself, and how far he intended his analysis to describe the behavior of people in an actual named society at a given period of time. Later he wrote (Firth 1954:7): The problem of correspondence of the model with reality is one which economists have on the whole met fairly and squarely. They now see that the con- cepts and relations chosen for the construction of the model are not given by nature, but are largely the invention Of the investigator. The methodological character of the "natural system" is evidenced not only by the fact that empirical facts may depart from it but also because "the general principles elucidated by the sociologist are not rigid in their application and have not a necessary deterministic 151 character..." (Firth 1951bz484). That the affinity of social anthropolOgy with the natural sciences is chiefly methodological is openly stated (Ibid:479): Generalizations in the natural sciences are assumed to be valid for a wide field of phenomena without the need for testing every instance, because exper- ience has shown the homogeneity of the field repre- sented. A similar assumption is commonly made in social anthrOpology. Regarding the "similar methodological assumption" which is made in social anthropology there are certain broad cultural features that may justify making it and many others which do not and therefore, Firth says, "Now the issue of homogeneity demands a common sense approach" (hog. 9.1.2.). Firth (1952:58), in a critical review of Evans- Pritchard's position that social systems are not natural systems makes his criticism on purely methodological grounds . But how real is the distinction between the 'natural' and the 'social' system? If the 'laws' which account for the behavior of a 'natural' system are not in- variable principles but statements of probability, attempts to reduce the area of uncertainty in the understanding of a field of phenomena, then the difference is not fundamental. In his criticism of Evans-Pritchard's rejection of soc- iety as a natural system Firth holds that any system from which can be abstracted principles of order independent of the observer's presence is by definition a 'natural' system. In the social anthropology of Firth "perception 152 of order is then fundamental to our inquiry" not an onto- logical postulate of nature and man's relationship to it. Firth's usage of the term nature is usually in dis- tinction from man and his socio-cultural order. A chapter entitled "Man and Nature" in Human Types is concerned with man and his bio-physical environment. In another publi- cation he makes such statements as, "... significant re- lationships of maple to one another, sineg and in groups, and of people to natural phenomena" (1959:1310. These references to natural systems and nature lead to the conclusion that nature as a mechanistic determinant order and within which man and his culture are conceived does not characterize the world view of Firth. Nature as the environment of man is conceived as separate from him and as an external influence on man's culture. Otherwise nature has only methodological significance in Firth's study of human phenomena; And yet, it has this same sig- nificance for all observable events--whether they occur in physical, biological, psychological or social systems. God, or the supernatural, as an existence separate from Man or Nature is not a part of Firth's methodolog- ical world view. Beliefs in the supernatural are impor- tant facts in the anthropologist's study of human soci- eties and cultures. But they are regarded as symbolic of "tensions, incompatibilities, conflicts in the struc- L ture of the society" (Ibid:135). The referent of .the K I 153 symbolic statements (Loc. cit.): must lie in the field of human and physical relations, and there alone. We do not believe in the validity of witchcraft, in the sense of the autonomous exist- ence of invisible, personally controlled evil powers of the order described by our informants. Firth is careful to limit the anthropologist role as that of giving the explanation of social phenomena and as such he is not concerned with the validity of religious be- liefs. In the anthropological world view of Firth the focus is on man. Nature is quite distinct and only of methodological importance. God is a projection or func- tion of the social order of man. With these conceptions of nature and social system the relation of man to the society or the culture is not beset with any problems of determinism vs. free will. The relation of man to man, man to nature, and man to himself represent three areas that are mediated by human values or culture. Culture is then not something distinct or apart from man but rather is the character of his relations with all else. Culture has no determinant laws governing its development nor is it a determinate system governing the behavior of man. In fact, Firth has become interested much more than Radcliffe-Brown in the individual and in psychology. The rather hypothetical concept of social structure as a social system made possible a companion construct of 154 social organization to conceptualize the order of choice and decision. And for Firth (1954:12) "It is to the act of decision and its social consequences that we look pri- marily for our material." These observations of the Man-Nature-God aspect of Firth's world view indicate that in contrast to White and Kroeber the emphasis and focus is on.Man. Man's socio- culture order has a nature of its own within it. The nature of the bio-physical world only provides the nec- essary prerequisites and environment in which the socio- cultural order develops. HistorybPhilosophy-Science The rejection by the British social anthropologists of the philosOphical assumption of the evolutionists left them with a choice between science and history in their approach to the socio-cultural phenomena of man. They chose science. The preceding section outlines the manner in which Firth defined and followed this course. Yet throughout his work Firth manifests a reaponse to a felt lack. His concern with values points to the need to deal with culture more specifically. The concept of social organization was introduced to deal with the more con- crete aspects of human phenomena in the time dimension of change. This indicates that Firth feels there is something about socio-cultural order that the methodology 155 of abstract theoretical science cannot handle. The unsat- isfactory handling of the time dimension he holds is due "partly to obscurities in our methodology" (Firth 1954:15) It cannot be said that Firth has developed an historical approach; in fact, he prefers to leave the broad general- izations over macro-time to Sorokin and Toynbee. He has come to recognize that history, "is a dimension of our subject matter not a division of it" (Ibigsl6). The division of history and science for Firth is not in terms of the phenomena to which they address them- selves, i.e. history to man, science to nature. For nature has its historical approaches--geology and astron- omy--and the social order may be studied scientifically (Firth 1951b:484). But the human order is conceived as having an historical dimension that the structural func- tional approach of social science is inadequate to handle. WORLD VIEW-ETHOS Rather than culture being something that one stands apart from and may have an attitude toward, detached or otherwise; one's attitudes and beliefs are his culture. They are a part of the individual and the individual being a social product they are a part of the social relations of which he is a part. Thus, at least it appears to this author, is Firth's attitude. The anthropologist stands apart from culture only in the 156 sense or degree that he stands apart from other people. This he may do as an observer but even as observer he must establish a relation of confidence and rapport. As suchi culture is a regulator of action and an incentive to action. It is the accumulated and inherited resources of the past which finds expression in individuals. For Firth culture is not the determinant natural phenomena of White that the anthropologist as well as citizen stands impotent before. nor is it delicate to approach reality of Boas and Kroeber, the perception of which is so liable to dis- tortion by anthropological abstraction and theorizing. The cultural phenomena approached is well able to put to test the models which the anthrOpologist holds up to it. If this writer is able to 'feel' the 'feeling' of Firth relative to culture, it is essentially man confronting himself. As his world view-eidos is man centered so is his world viewaethos. Man or the self is no necessary distortion of reality-~though this is a possibility with- in his faculties-~yet in a sense man becomes the measure of reality and the quest for knowledge is the quest to come to know himself. And this is his activity; not the activity of an impersonal nature, nor yet of a de- individualized culture, nor yet of a transcendental supernatural power. 157 Several rather generalized attitudes are eXpressed by Firth in regards to particular cultures. The first pertains to Firth as a member of Western civilization and as anthropologist in his study of primitive cultures. This attitude arises from the fact that he does not share their beliefs and values but that he does desire to ob- tain an unbiased or accurate description of them. There- fore in his working among primitive peoples in reporting his findings he assumes the As-If attitude (Firth 1959: 157): Basically, confidence on the one side and sympathy on the other are very important. Contradiction, or any other contra-action, by the anthropologist would impair rapport with his informants or co-oarticipants. He behaves then, in word and deed, as if he believes in the religious system he is observiEE7‘g§_if it were true. What is true of his attitude toward the religious aspects of the culture is no doubt true, at least to a lesser extent of several other aspects of the culture. Second, Firth is not fearful of distorting the picture of social reality by a theoretical approach. Yet he is careful to get an accurate description by recog- nizing the social reality involved in his own contact. Further, as an anthropologist, he feels that anthropo- logical knowledge is of value in its application to intra-cultural and inter-cultural problems. He is committed to the value of applied anthropology. Firth (1958:160-166) outlines four contributions which the 158 anthropologist's knowledge of culture may make to society: 1) helps toward a general understanding of native custom and of the importance of native attitudes 2) understanding promotes greater tolerance by those in adminstrative positions 5) basic analysis may indicate causes of inter- cultural problems and point the way to their solution - 4) As a cultural subject it may broaden the edu- cation of a person of a mature mind The position of an applied scientist in terms of socio-cultural phenomena may appear to be a self contra- diction but Firth solves the problem in the definition of his role. First his role is pictured as one of diagnosis and prediction. He thus compares himself to be a doctor whose patient has already decided the kind of treatment he wants.' Second, in the diagnosis the anthrOpologist is free to call into question the ends as well as the means of the dominant society involved in the problem, and third, by assuming moral responsibility that is both cross-cultural and in harmony with science. Firth's con- cept of the 'moral' objectivity of the applied anthro- pologist is expressed thus (ggggziss): Freedom from the chains of a "practical" programme is as essential to oojective anthropology as it is to the other sciences--perhaps even more so than most, since its results can bear so directly upon the lives of men. 159 This is not to say that practical research m not be directed to practical ends; it is merely 0 say 'that there ought to be no pressure brought to bear that it should be so directed. Firth (l954:l) sees such a citizen role of the social anthropologist developing in modern society: There is now the beginning of a realization in the public mind that a trained social anthropologist may have something to offer to the society in which he lives. Total cultural relativity is not regarded by Firth as a criterion for scientific objectivity. Not only does he hold that complete indifference to cultural values is a psychological impossibility but also that it is a log- ically inconsistent position. While a study of other cultural codes may cast a new and clearer perspective upon one's own, yet Firth (1953:150) maintains: ... they do not lead inevitably to the proposition that there are no ultimate values, that there are no absolute criterion. ... it is as if the fact that many clocks were out of order has made one lose faith in the existence of time.. Moreover as Redfield and also Bidney have shown, the affirmation that we should have respect and tolerance for the values of other cultures is itself a value which is not derivable from the proposition that values are relative. How an anthropologist or anyone else orients himself with respect to existential absolutes, ultimate values, or un- iversal cultural values is central to his world'view- ethos. From Firth's writings at least three generaliza- tions can be made. The first taken from the above quo- tation indicates the belief in the absolute apart from 160 any distortion of its departure from it by the beliefs and values of peoples of various cultures. That is, if ultimate and universally valid values may receive social definition they may also be misdefined and thus there is an absolute criterion for cultural definitions. The second generalization is, on the other hand, that the values of primitive cultures are not merely an imperfect production of a transcendental ultimate or good (Firth 1959:136). If this were the case all cultures would share a certain cross culture interest in a common supercultural, supernatural reality and good. The third generalization is that absolutes or ulti- mates may find orpression in a socio-cultural context. One example of this is Firth's unequivocal denial of be- lief in witchcraft (Ibid:155): We do not believe in the validity of witchcraft, in the sense of an autonomous existence of invisible, personally controlled evil powers of the order de- scribed by our informants. Here is not just an expression of a cultural difference One belief is consciously placed in judgement in belief. Yet not admitting to ethnocentrism. A on the other. further consideration of this point is Firth's concept of the moral responsibility of the anthropologist when con- fronted by the problem arising from the clash of values between his own culture and those of primitive peoples. 161 CONCLUSION The anthropological world view of Raymond Firth has a strong methodological emphasis as compared to the onto- .logicalt It is this emphasis which Firth selects from 'the world view of science. It is much more a way of look- ing at the world than what the world is. Man is the dom- inant unit of the MansNature-God triad. The social anthropological rejection of cultural evolution leaves Firth with two distinct methodological approaches to human phenomena; the structural functional approach of science and the need for a methodology to treat the diachronic dimension of change which the former cannot. Thus science and history remain complementary but distinct approaches to the phenomena of man. Bringing these two approaches together through the concepts of social structure and social organization has been the focus of Firth's theoretical work. However, the detach- ment of history and science in the approach to cultural phenomena continues as an unsolved problem in the goal of Firth's world view. The world view of Tylor and Morgan is almost entirely absent. Perhaps the only recognition of it is to be found in holding to a natural science of culture and societies and in the search for some method to integrate the approaches of history and science-- 162 which evolution did. Otherwise Firth's world view con- forms to the fundamental framework of Western civilization as structured in this study. CHAPTER IX E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD E. E. Evans-Pritchard was born in 1902, the second son of Rev. Thomas John Evans-Pritchard. He was educated at Winchester College and Exeter College, Oxford, after which he became Professor of Sociology at Egyptian Un- iversity of Cairo. After serving in the army in the Abyssinian Campaign and in Syria and Cyrenaica, he was made Reader in Anthropology at Cambridge. In 1946 he went to Oxford to occupy the chair held by Radcliffe- Brown who at this time was retiring. Evans-Pritchard still occupies the position of Professor of Social Anthr0pology at Oxford. He has conducted six major and several minor anthropological eXpeditions to Central, .East, and North Africa. Important monographs were writ- ten on the Azande and the Nuer. WORLD VIEW-EIDOS Man—Nature-God JLn the world view of Evans-Pritchard the triad of Man-Nature-God maintains sharp ontological distinctions and each has a valid claim to reality in its own right. 163 164 The anthropological focus of attention is of course on man, but there is no encompassing of nature within the social order of man as with Firth, nor is there a swal- lowing up of man--and God—-in nature as with White. Maintaining the Man-Nature distinction reflects the funda- mental position of the Greek and the modern Western civ- ilization, and also a clear cut, forthright rejection of . the evolutionary inclusion of man and culture in nature. g In discrediting the "plausible guesswork" of the evolu- tionist's inclusion of man and culture in nature, Evans- Pritchard (l95_l:58) registers how the early development of anthropology "looks to him: If one accepts that man is descended from some ape- like creature it may be reasonable to suppose at one time his sexual relations must have been in some degree promiscuous, and to ask further how it has come about that monogamous marriage has developed from this condition; but the supposition and recon- struction of development are purely speculative. They are not history. If Firth makes an anthropological role distinc- tion that tends either to eliminate God or subsume Him within the man and culture category; Evans-Pritchard makes a role distinction which leaves these three cat- egories with equal ontolOgical status. Evans-Pritchard recognizes that there are qualified specialists for other aspects of the world view as he may be in terms of man. He recognizes not only the natural scientist role but also the theologian role as valid though distinct 165 It does not follow that Evans-Pritchard is In his from his own. not concerned with religion as social phenomena. thinking, religion is influenced by, as well as influ- ences, the social structure of society. But God is not to be explained by the social order. From‘hi‘s work among the a Nuer he took the following position (Ibida320): Sociological writers ... have often treated religious conceptions, because they refer to what cannot be ex- a perienced by the senses, as a projection of the social 9 order. This is inadmissable ... the Nuer conception g of God cannot be reduced to, or explained by, the social order. On this particular issue he sharply opposes the position of Durkheim saying, "It was Durkheim and not the savage who made society into a god" (Evans-Pritchard 1956:513). Firth followed Durkheim, giving to the supernatural a "symbolic" explanation. The referent of the symbol was to be found in the social order. Evans-Pritchard held that for the Nuer this was not the case. The symbolic forms: appeared to refer only to "a relationship between man and God which transcends all forms" (M621): A study of the symbols tells us nothing of the nature of what is symbolized. Spirit in itself is for Nuer a mystery which lies behind the names and the totemic and other appearances in which it is represented. By recognizing the equally valid role of theologian and anthrOpologist, Evans-Pritchard maintains a world view in which God holds an autonomous existence apart from Nature and from Man. An explicit statement indicating 166 this world view closes his book Nuer Religion (Ibid:522): Though prayer and sacrifice are exterior actions, Nuer religion is ultimately an interior state. This state is externali'zed in rites which we can observe, but their meaning depends finally on an awareness of God and that men are dependent on him and must be resigned to his will. At this point the theologian takes over from the anthropologist. It should be here observed that, similar to White but in contrast to Firth, Evans-Pritchard has no special- ized world view arising from a special role distinction between anthropologist and citizen. His world view as an anthropologist is his world view as participant in the ongoing life of his society. These comparisons remind us that Kroeber made some contrast in his general world view by which he lived and that by Which he carried out his intellectual, scientific activities. He confesses (Kroeber 1952:116): And further I am aware that in living my practical life I must necessarily, ifI am to act at all, do as if I enjoyed freedom of will, even though intel- Iec tually and impersonally I choose to remain a determinist. It is at least suggestive to observe that Kroeber and Firth who cling to the culture-rin-nature postulate but reject the evolutionist hypothesis which established it do not find in their world views as anthropologists that which is broad enough to live by; and that either an attitude of complete acceptance of the evolutionary position as with White, or a complete rejection of it as with Evans-Pritchard leaves the anthropologist with what 167 is for him an adequate life philosophy. One may infer from Evans-Pritchard's statements that those who fail to maintain a clear-cut distinction between God and nature as well as between God and man ___.‘.1U-eg a . a .. i I only introduce a religious element into these other parts Thus in opposition to the evolutionary of of the world view. philosophy that laid the foundations of early anthropology 4 we“ . ’- F‘hrll-_._h he says (Evans-Pritchard 1950:125): This normative element in anthropology is, as we have seen, like the concepts of natural law and progress from which it derives, part of its philosophical heritage... A full discussion of it would be too long, but I cannot resist the observation that, as a history of anthropology shows, positivism leads very easily to a misguided ethics, anaemic scien- tific humanism or--Saint Simon and Comte are cases in point--ersatz religion. The Man-Nature distinction is also sharply main- tained. In fact this distinction has been an issue over which he opposes both the earlier evolutionist's position and that of Radcliffe-Brown. That social systems are (phenomena in nature or are natural systems are equally denied. Further, Evans—Pritchard (1951:57) sees no methodological advantage in regarding them as such: ... I think that we may ask again whether social systems are in fact natural systems at all, whether, for instance, a legal system is really comparable to a physiological system or a planetary system. I cannot see myself that there is any good reason for regarding a social system as a system of the same kind as an organic or inorganic system. It seems to me to be an entirely different kind of system; and I think that the effort to discover natural laws of society is vain and leads only to airy discussions about methods. 168 Evans-Pritchard recognizes that the Man-Nature distinc- tion which he holds is not shared by most of his col- leagues. He says of them (Ibid:62): They would prefer to describe what (the social anthro- pologist) does' in the language of the methodology of V! the natural science, whereas what I have said implies ;‘ that social anthropology studies societies as moral, ; or symbolic, systems and not as natural systems, that it is less interested in process than in design, and g- that it therefore seeks patterns and not laws, dem- ._' onstrates consistency and not necessary relations between social activities, and interprets rather 5:3 than explains. On the other hand, in a recent personal letter to the author, he stated: ... I would say that most of my colleagues in this Institute, and indeed most British anthropologists, share my view that social anthropology belongs in the humanities rather than the sciences. It is on the basis of a search for natural laws in the human socio-cultural order that Evans-Pritchard finds common cause against the evolutionists and the function- alists (See Evans-Pritchard 1950:120, 121). History--Philosophy:-Science In direct contrast to the evolutionist attempt to do science and history at the same time, Hyena-Pritchard (1951:48) shares the position of his British colleagues that: Historical and natural science studies are different kinds of study with different aims, methods, and techniques, and only confusion can result from try- ing to pursue both together. 169 It is on two points that he differs from most other British social anthropologists. First he denies the validity of the natural science approach to socio- cultural phenomena, and second, he objects to the self imposed limitation resulting from a natural science ap- proach which fails to take into account the historical dimension of history. He shares his fellow function- alist'si. rejection of social philosophy and the subse— quent indistinction between history and science but their choice of natural science to the neglect of his- tory in the study of societies is viewed as a wrong step. They have "with the bath water of presumptive history... thrown out the baby of valid history" (Evans- Pritchard 1950:121). The following statement by Evans-Pritchard (1951: 48) indicates quite clearly that he recognizes and re- jects the confluence of history, philosophy and science in the position of the evolutionists: In the study of primitive societies it is the task of the historian of primitive peoples, the ethnolo- gist, to discover, if he can, how their institutions have come to be what they are. It is the task of the scientist, the social anthropologist, to dis- cover their functions in the social systems to which they belong. Even with the best sources at his disposal, the historian can only tell us what has been the succession of accidental events by which a society has become what it is. These events could not be deduced from general principles, nor can a study of the events yield them. The nineteenth century anthrOpologists were therefore doubly at fault; they were reconstructing history without - __‘,._. a. Affi‘*an J'p———~ l7O adequate material for doing so, and they were seek- ing to establish sociological laws by a method that cannot lead to their establishment. In reviewing the historical development of an- thropology Evans-Pritchard (1951:25) recognized the syn- thesizing role that the social philosophy of the ?a eighteenth century played in uniting history and sci- 3 once in a study of the social order of man: we have already in the speculation of these g eighteenth century writers all the ingredients of ? anthrOpological theory in the following century, and even at the present day: the emphasis on in- stitutions, the assumption that human societies are natural systems, the insistence that the study of them.must be empirical and inductive, that its purpose is the discovery and formulation of uni- versal principles or laws, particularly in terms of development revealed by the comparative method of conjectural history, and that its ultimate purpose is the scientific determination of ethics. ' Evans-Pritchard, then, not only rejects the evol- utionist position but is equally opposed to a 'natural' history and a 'natural' science approach to society or culture chiefly because of the ontological assumption involved. Methodologically he expresses a fundamental agreement with.Kroeber's natural history as the follow- ing illustrates (Evans-Pritchard 1950:122): I agree with Professor Kroeber that the fundamental characteristic of the historical method is not chron- ological relation of events but descriptive inte- gration of them; and this characteristic histori- ography shares with social anthropology. As pertains to natural science, Firth sees no real dis- tinction between his own approach to societies as 171 natural systems and Evans-Pritchard's approach to them as social systems. The difference between them he likens' to the difference between coca-cola and pepsi-cola (Firth 1952:38, 39). Firth's judgement is quite under- standable when it is remembered that his world view shows a strong methodological emphasis while Evans— _'_I:_ ...?7-1‘.-fl.l’.c' a". | ' A I, . I Pritchard is here concerned with ontological issues. Basically Evans-Pritchard's two approaches rest upon two kinds of abstraction which the anthropologist makes. The use of the culture concept leads either to an historical or psychological approach while the use of society leads to a sociological or structural ap- proach (See Evans-Pritchard 1951:19). 'The ethnologist studies the historical development of man's socio- cultural order; while the social anthropologist as a scientist is concerned with a synchronic approach to the social order as it exists at a point in time. Evans- Pritchard, however, strongly opposes the idea that the structural approach can be carried out without any reference to history. Social history and social science are for him complementary approaches in anthropological research. Social science here means nothing more than the synchronic approach to the moral and symbolic social systems of man. The three following phases of research ‘BhOW'hOW Evans-Pritchard views the complementarity of the two approaches (Ibid:6l, 62): 172 First he seeks to understand the significant overt features of a culture and to translate them into the terms of his own culture. This is precisely what the historian does... In the second phase of his work the social anthro- pologist goes a step farther and seeks by analysis to disclose the latent underlying form of a society or culture... (The work of the scientist or more sociological historian). In the third phase of his work the anthrOpologist compares the societal structures his analysis has revealed in a wide range of studies. A fruitful interchange is foreseen between historians i4 and social anthropologists and social anthropology it- self is viewed as a kind of historiography. WORLD VIEW-ETHOS Culture and society, for Evans-Pritchard (1951: 16-18) are complementary abstractions from the moral- symbolic order of man. This is not to make culture an unreality but rather an abstract way of looking at reality. Culture is the set of customs, norms, and beliefs involved in the system of relationships of people living in a moral-symbolic order. As an anthro- pologist, Evans-Pritchard is part of one moral order studying another moral order and attempting to translate its meaning so that it is comprehensible in'terms of his <7Wu1. This type of confrontation of the phenomena of <311.].ture he regards as an art. The purpose of an abstract stnmictural approach to the moral order is to be able to I 175 "see social life as (Ibid:125): ... a set of interconnected parts, as a whole. This can only be done by analysis; but that analysis is made, not as an end--to resolve social life into elements--but as a means--to bring out its essential unity by the subsequent integration of the abstrac- tions reached by analysis. This is why I have stressed that for me social anthropology, whatever ,else it may be, is an art. Since societies and cultures are abstract consid- ‘erations of specific moral-symbolic orders the problem ’ of the attitude of the anthrOpologist's detachment from them or relationships in them is important. The world viewbethos of Evans-Pritchard is here characterized by a necessary involvement in the moral order not only with his own society but with the peOple he is studying, though in a qualified sense. He feels that the anthro- .pologist's involvement in his own culture is implicit in.all his work, i.e. (Ibid:84): One can only interpret what one sees in terms of one's own experience and of what one is, and anthro- pologists, while they have a body of knowledge in common, differ in other respects as widely as other people in their backgrounds of experience and in themselves. ... However as much as anthropologists may differ among themselves they are all children of the same culture and society. In the main, they all have, apart from their common specialist know- .ledge and training, the same cultural categories and.values which direct their attention to sel- nected characteristics of the societies being studied. But if a certain involvement in his own culture char- aeterizes the anthropologist so must he also establish some kind of identification with that which he is 174 studying. In one sense he is in a neutral position (I2$Q:78. 79): Unlike the administrator and missionary he has no authority and status to maintain, and unlike them he has a neutral position. He is not there to change their way of life but as a humble learner an of it... ;3 His neutral position which the anthropological role ?’ gives him in terms of his own social structure makes it I possible for him to experience a greater involvement in 'native' society (Loc. cit.): What is even more important for his work is the fact that he is all alone, cut off from companion- ship of men of his own race and culture, and is dependent on the natives around him for company, friendship, and human understanding. An anthro- pologist has failed unless when he says goodbye to the natives, there is on both sides the sorrow of parting. It is evident that he can only estab- lish this intimacy if he makes himself in some degree a member of their society and lives, thinks, and feels in their culture since only he, and not they, can make the necessary transference. The world view-ethos of Evans-Pritchard is shown also in his attitude with respect to applied anthrOpol- ogy. Applied anthropology in the same sense as mechan- ical engineering is impossible because, "if there are no laws known, they cannot be applied" (Ibid:117). The ap- plication of anthropological knowledge to social prob- lems is limited to two considerations. First the an- thrOpologist is in a better position to discover the facts involved in cross-cultural problems and he is ‘better able to estimate the effects of administrative 175 action. Second, the knowledge of the social anthropol- ogist is itself a fruitful contribution to his own cul- ture; this is a point shared by Firth. Not only is the knowledge of the language, culture and social life of native peoples of value to their western administrators but this knowledge can play a fruitful role in reshaping the attitude of European people in general toward non- western cultures. Further, it helps them to see social life "as a set of interconnected parts' as a whole" (Ibid:125). Also social anthropology may teach the westerner "not about primitive societies as such, but about the nature of human society in general" (Ibid:127). _ Where Evans-Pritchard draws the line on applied anthropology is in matters of the determination of pol- icy. This position is maintained by illustrating "that ends are determined by values which are axiomatic and do not derive from factual knowledge of the circum- stances" (Ibid:119). In this position the anthropo- .logioal role distinction of Evans-Pritchard is quite clear. He is a part of the socio-cultural order but his role does not call for determining policies within :it. In.this sense he maintains a certain status of value detachment. Evans-Pritchard's position-regarding cultural absolutes and universals is an integral part of his world view. He rejects the cultural absolute inherent . - -'.‘1.—-": '~ - - ' P .9“ I 176 in the evolutionary concept of progress saying (Evans- Pritchard'l950:105): This normative element in anthropology is, as we have seen, like the concepts of natural law and progress from which it derives, part of its phil- osophical heritage. Recognizing the difference in his own world view—ethos he confesses to feeling a "moral separation from the anthropologists of last century" (Evans-Pritcnard 1951: 41). He recognizes the absolutism in the relativist position as did Raymond Firth, but explicitly rejects it as the child of the natural science-functionalist position (Evans-Pritchard 1950:120): In its extreme form functional determinism leads to absolute relativism and makes nonsense not only of the theory itself but of all thought. As an anthropologist, Evans-Pritchard does not feel that absolutes are the concern of his professional field, but he recognizes their existence even as he recognizes the ontological distinction of God from Nature and Man. Thus when it comes to matters of rightness or wrongness in cross cultural relations and the anthropological re- sponsibility involved he states, "whether we are doing right or wrong is a question for moral philosophy, not for social anthrOpology" (Evans-Pritchard 1951:120). 1‘77 CONCLUSION Evans-Pritchard appears to most completely con- form to the world view of Greek and Renaissance founda- tions-—and to most completely reject the world view of evolutionist anthropology. The Man-Nature-God triad is maintained as distinct and ontologically of equal status. A natural history as well as a natural science of man is rejected. History, philosophy and science remain inher- ently different confrontations of man's world. Some brief comparisons may be made of the four anthropologists regarding the.manner they relate his- tory, philosophy and Science in terms 0f their accept- ance or rejection of the evolutionist postulate. Ac— ceptance of the evolutionist postulate by White makes possible an approach in which formal generalization takes place in terms of the diachronic order of culture. .History and science are thus joined while still reserv- ing for them an approach in which they are distindt. Of those who reject the evolutionist postulate: l. Kroeber finds the natural history approach superior to the natural science in regard to the cultural order. 2. Firth regards the structural functional ap- proach of natural science inadequate in and of itself in the study of man--even though arr-*9“ 1,, .. w. \ . . . . _._q——.- 178 defining science in a nondeterminative sense. 5. Evans-Pritchard in distinguishing between a science of moral order and a science of the order of nature and then identifying the science of the moral order as an histori- ography comes closest to making the earlier cultural distinction of science as an approach to natural phenomena and history as an approach to social phenomena. Evans-Pritchard, along with other British social anthropologists, advocates a science of man, a structur- al functional approach to the synchronic order of social systems. This is qualified however in that the social system is not a natural but a moral system and therefore does not yield determinative laws; also that the cul- tural dimension of history is added. The result is that Evans-Pritchard regards his 'science‘ as a kind of historiography and his 'scientific' activities as a work of art. By refusing to encompass man and culture in the 'nature' of the world view which developed out of the seventeenth century scientific revolution, Evans- IPritchard has at least escaped the problems inherent in the assumptions of the early evolutionists. . o4 179 Additional evidence that the evolutionist cul- ture-in-nature postulate is logically problematical with ‘the Greek-scientific foundations of the Western world view is that the choice of the former by White fits into his total life philosophy, while the choice of the latter does the same for Evans-Pritchard. On the other hand, Kroeber and Firth, who reject the evolutionist postulate and still hold to the man-and-culture-in- nature postulate, produce a world view that is limited to their intellectual or anthrOpolgical activities. CHAPTER X SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The conclusions of this study form two categories. I 5} First, there are the substantive conclusions which follow ? from the analysis of anthropology through the concept of world view. The second category will be termed methodo- logical since these conclusions follow from the exercise and experience involved in conducting the investigation. Because this study has been an anthropological investi- gation of anthropology, these two categories are related. SUBSTANTIVE CONCLUSIONS The cultural background and history of anthropology have been analyzed in this study in terms of the change and development of world views. Basic differences in the ontological aspects of the Primitive, Greek, and Evolu- tionist world views are graphically presented in Figures 1, 2, and 5. It must be remembered that the term God here refers to a commonly held segment of world views but a segment which is variously defined in them. It may or may not be a conceptualization of a personal being. Red- field's term God as used here only conceptualizes the 180 181 general area of world view devoted to religious and spir- itual beliefs. The term Man refers to man as a cultural being. Man thus is identified in terms of human exper- ience, knowledge, and way of life. Nature, too, is var- iously defined by cultures but, as used here cross cul- F? turally, conceptualizes the observable world other than i“ man in which man lives. Figure l--Ontological Aspect of the Primitive World View The world view of the primitive rests upon an in- volvement of the observer with the world which he looks out upon. Figure 1 seeks to portray that there is not a.sharp differentiation in the world view between man and nature. The result is a Nature that is highly personal- ized, that is, it takes on the characteristics of per- sonality. Similarly, as Redfield observes, there is no sharp differentiation between God and Nature and thus the figure presents them also within one encompassing line. 182 Nature then for the primitive takes on a "Spiritual" as well as a personal character. The outside line of the figure indicates further the lack of differentiation ;within a Nature dominated world view. Though Nature takes on a personal and spiritual character, its domin- ;g ance in most instances is manifested by a conceptualiza- tion of the supreme or ultimate power in terms of an impersonal "mana." The world view of the Greeks rests upon a sharp detachment between the observer and the world he looks out upon. This detachment correlates with sharp onto- logical distinctions within their world view as pictured in.Figure 2. \ God \\‘\ \e \x - \\ . ’ n K ' 5 Figure 2--Ontological Aspect of the Greek World View * Nature {Ehe result is a depersonalized and despiritualized Nature that is fundamental to the Greek development of science. The objective observer position, as well as the begin- nings of science, encouraged a similar approach to Man axni God. Thus the way was opened for a critical investi— gation of their own knowledge, way of life, and history; —-and also for the develOpment of medicine. A similar 183 "objectivity” relative to God produced a conceptualiza- tion of one supreme Spiritual being but one which was distant, unknown and for most purposes irrelevant. The scientific revolution greatly changed and de- veloped man's concept of Nature. This had a great impact upon the total world view, but it made no basic changes in the ontological distinctions within-the world view. Man-Nature-God as defined in this study remained sharply ; differentiated. The definition of Nature by an abstract approach generalizing the order of events in the physical universe led to a conceptualization of Nature that was mechanistic, determinate, and boundless in time and space; but the abstract generalizations came to be conceived as concrete forces accounting for the behavior of physical bodies. The success of this period in explaining and predicting the physical events of Nature was a challenge to consider other events, i.e. human or cultural, as ontologically similar. As expressed by Kroeber (1948: 841), "They wish to study men's physiques and men's cul- tures as other natural scientists study stars or rocks or lightning..." When this step was taken, it did make a change in the basic ontological distinctions of the Greek and 17th century world views. The lack of ont010gical distinction in the evolu- tionist Man-in-Nature world view is pictured in Figure 5. 184 , ' ,. fikfix - "God \\ , ' \. / ' .r . ‘5’ if an ' Nature) :l \ _',- " \~._~ ' _. an!" . 1 - 1 > . 4" -. ‘N- \k » ' i ’H— Figure 5--Ontological Aspect of the Evolutionist World View ‘T'fi' This world view rests upon both a fundamental observer detachment as the Greek while, at the same time, breaking down the ontological detachment in the world view as in the primitive. The ontological distinction of the Greeks between Man and Nature and between God and Man are not maintained. By this is meant, as schematized in Figure 5, that Man (cultural) is considered a phenomenon of Nature rather than as distinct from Nature. In the second place, God is considered as a cultural phenomenon and therefore is not differentiated from Man and also since culture is natural phenomena, God via culture be- comes a natural phenomenon. It is evident that this world view, like that of the primitive, is Nature dom- inated. But it is a Nature that is c0nceived--as in the Greek and 17th century scientific world view--in a non- personal and nonspiritual sense. That is, Man and God are seen in a natural sense. U! \ Is. 2.: 1... 185 Basic differences in the methodological aspects of the world views of Primitive, Greek, and 19th century Evolutionist world views are graphically presented in Figures 4, S, and 6. Figure 4 pictures history, science, and philosophy as essentially undifferentiated in_the primitive's approach to his world. His understanding of the order of the universe, its underlying assumptions, and its past history are woven together in the bonds of myth. k" in Science‘ Philfisophy history L(I Figure 4--Methodological Aspect of the Primitive World View Since in these three figures the horizontal position is used to represent the temporal dimension of the world 'view, these intertwining strands are drawn vertically to Bignify the "eternal being" characteristic of the prin- itive world view. That which was, still is and always continues to be. Or, as Miss Ella Peloria, a modern ' Dakota, described her peoples' world view to the author, "You see, we Indians lived in eternity." The radical differences of the Greek world view 186 are pictured in Figure 5. r. ‘ {INJ ' - . , ‘ \ L f ( A -\‘ I . ‘\ ~ )(l’ ( oil _a ( .1 ‘. I : - (J .1 x. x .‘ ° p f C I I ‘ ‘ \ r] \ " $.- ' )‘r G ‘)‘ - - \ fl 4\ ~ _. § __1 J 0 -5 x ‘ 4 *I __z " —e ____'. ... ul’ ‘. (’ ) ‘r | ”J \ \‘ ’ \ _ U 0—"! \‘/I .L e ‘-‘\‘- I \ ......” -... -_._-.___.__.---... - U’ 0° \ 1 .1- --- -..-_ -..” \ ’z‘ b \" ’ K \y 4 ' 7 :" V I 3&— .J . l' r‘ *V ..."-.-__i ---- Lin"; 7 1 a U] I)“, \e -4 ‘(’ -L h -) P t A. I; ‘\ O .1 I (O f V I .. 5-..}- 141..) ‘..€ V 1“” . . - ' 4 -a‘._».....—~~. - _., , 4-. v. Figure 5--Methodologica1 Aspect of the Greek World View 5< F-t' :f _ ! N."7‘tl:,L C's] 187 Science is devoted to the fixed order of the physical world and is differentiated from history as devoted to the changing cultural order of man. Both, as devoted to observable events, are distinguished from philosophy which is devoted to the origin, nature, and ultimates of T] the order in which events take place and to the assump- ; 1 tions and logic of man in the understanding of these events. 4 In the development of the 17th century world view * the methodological distinctions of the Greeks were cul- turally inherited. However, several developments pointed to.a confluence of these distinct intellectual streams, history, science, and philosophy. History was extended to include the earth and the rest of the material uni- verse. Lyell‘s uniformitarianism linked the present phy- ical order of science to that of natural history, and a philosophical assumption was identified with the events. of nature. Others sought for scientific laws of human history. Still others sought for a philosophical prin- ciple for history in social evolutionist philosophy. By mid-nineteenth century a number of these trends were developing that called for some modification at least, of the methodological distinctions in the Greek and 17th century world views. The combined works of Darwin and the evolutionist anthropologists in conceiving man and culture in nature 188 is the basis for a world view as pictured in Figure 6, that does cross over the basic methodological'distinc- tions of the Greek world view. By conceiving Man in History~- __\ <’ \\‘a dwx. e»\. ”we ,- ,H_ fii{ Philosophy—~17-¥?*ti;'"_f:“"“’fj>(;.; .* *a.“ ‘ ‘ , .~- Science~w ' ‘ : Figure 6--Methodologica1 Aspect of the Evolutionist g} WOrld View ‘ Nature the evolutionist found in the present order the philosophical key to its origins, development and char- acter. A11 history became natural and lawful and at the same time acquired a principle of development. In thus presenting the intertwining of history, science, and philoSOphy in the evolutionist world view, it is only be~ ing maintained that the distinctions of the Greeks were ‘no longer sharply and fully maintained. In contrast to the primitive, the mid-19thcentury world view was one of an."eterna1 becoming" rather than an "eternal being." Therefore Figure 6 presents this relationship in a hor- .izonta1 position which has no conceivable beginning or end. In this last mentioned quality the evolutionist ‘world view also differs from the Greek world view which *was conceived in.terms of a beginning and an end. A review of a century of anthropology indicates 189 that basic factors of the Greek, 17th century science, and 19th century evolutionist world views have indeed continued and are important factors in the development of anthropology. The methodological aspect of the world view has been most pertinent here. The focal reactions against the evolutionist position came first with Franz Boas and second with Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski. While Boas chose a natural history approach to man and the two British anthropologists chose a natural science approach, they agreed upon two points. First, that the evolutionists had confused history and science in their study of the socio-cultural order of Man, and second, that these two approaches must be kept separate. This position conforms to the Greek world view. Two outstand- ing examples of a more radical rejection of the evolu- tionist Man-in-Nature world view, can be cited, develop- ing out of both American and British anthropology. Both JRadin and Evans-Pritchard are explicit in their position that the socio-cultural phenomena of man cannot be treated ontologically as though it were the phenomena of’Nature, and both have agrued for its "historical” character. 4 Differences in the ontological and methodological aspects of Greek, l7th.century, and Evolutionist world -views serve to analyze polar differences in the works of :four modern anthropologists. Kroeber rejects 190 evolutionary laws of cultural development and also in- troduces a methodological detachment between man and culture. History and science are methodologically dif- ferentiated with history as the bestapproach to cultural phenomena. Kroeber thus compromises certain aspects of the evolutionist assumption and qualifies the mechanistic determinism of the concept of nature. The basic observer- observed detachment of the Greeks is preserved. White's monumental effort to weave a consistent world view from the base of the evolutionist postulate is itself, from the perspective of this study, a reflection of incompat- ible differences in the world views involved. Firth re- jects cultural evolution, while Man-in-Nature is for him little more than a legitimating myth to establish the status of social anthropology as a natural science. He thus maintains an essential harmony within the world views of the Greek and of 17th century science. Evans- Pritchard rejects the evolutionist Man-in-Nature postu- late in toto. His world view as an anthropologist is thus unproblematical within the framework of the Greek and scientific foundations and for him is congruous with his greater cultural environment as a citizen. This study has found that world views may change and develop within the basic outlines of their ontolog- ical and methodological characteristics. It has also found that these basic characteristics themselves may 191 change. However, unless they are completely overthrown, as in the case of the primitive world view, they persist. Logically incompatible differences have been found in comparing the world view of Greek and 17th century science with that of the evolutionist Man-in-Nature. Also, basic characteristics of both of these world views continue so that they serve to structure some of the polar issues in anthropology today. The differences in the basic ontological and methodological characteristics provides the cultural field in which anthropologists "have forged their unities in the fire of controversy" (Herskovits 1959:590). METHODOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS The pursuance of this study has led the author to confront many of the issues and problems in anthropology and thereby, to more consciously develop his own world view. One of these problems, which seems to be central to anthrOpology and is most certainly central to this study, is the problem of looking at a world view and at- tempting to construct a cosmology from it, through the framework of another world view. Yet, this every anthro— pologist does. The author is not immune from this anthro- pological problem even in his critical treatment of other anthropologists. The problem is, Does one necessarily distort another world view when seen through the eyes of 192 one that may be diverse from it? And, conversely, is one necessarily biased when studying his own world view? Arising then from this study as well as from the activ- iity of all anthropologists is the quest for some trans- cultural base of communication, some extra-cultural vant— age point of observation or some supercultural ultimate of truth or value. Does some such quality characterize Western Civilization, that uniquely enables its people to view the world of other peoples-~and even its own? In these questions as anthropologists we are caught between two of our own basic concepts, i.e. cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. It is quite evident that all anthro- pologists recognize this problem to some degree and have some position relative-to it. The four anthropologists of this study did, as an investigation of their world viewaethos revealed.- The use of world view as an analytical tool in this study has led the author to conclude that anthro- pologists have been able to make some valid statements about world views in general, and that while these may reflect the categories of their own culture, still they are not necessarily prejudicial toward it. Such state- ments are not themselves involved in the differences of world views which they may serve to analyze. A number of such statements which are implicit in this study are: 195 1. All men--including anthropologists, which in- cludes the author--have World views. 2. All world views have the eidos and ethos aspects. 5. All world views can be analyzed in terms of onto- logical and methodological categories. Also each category may be analyzed in three-fold divisions irrespective of how differently their contents may be defined. 4. World views may be described and differentiated in terms of their own definition of the elements that fill these categories and the interrelations within the division of each set of these cat- egories. In these statements the author-~and other anthro- pologists insofar as they may agree with him-éis assuming that there is at some level a common human expression; some universal base for cross cultural comparisons and communication. Such an assumption is a minimal assumption for the discipline of anthrOpology and thus must char- acterize the anthropological world view. 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W. 1958 "Alfred Louis Kroeber, 1876--" in Current Biography Yearbook, pages 256, 257. ((Eli Ll i i? i ' APPENDIX 205 L- ‘. M AN ETHNOGRAPHIC PARABLE:S FROM APE T0 ANTHRO A few observations of the Anthro tribe, cast in a comparative perspective, may serve as a basis for a bet- ter understanding of and possibly more tolerance for, this group known to some as eccentric students of exotic peoples.‘ The site of the study--the Isle of Publication-- was a strategic choice from many angles. This non- secluded spot is sought out by all Anthro seeking recog- nition. It appears that prestige and status is gained thereby and the most prestigeful Anthro visit here often. Observation confirms that this is also a place where skirmishes and tests of strength take place. Perhaps these encounters have something of the character of the Dakota 'counting coup' and therefore are a means of pres- tige advancement more than they are an example of malic- iousness or mortal combat. A third important advantage‘ found on the Isle of Publication is that communicatiOn from the dead--the past--is possible. Two way communica- tion 3332 the dead is not attempted by the Anthro as this kind of behavior belongs to a rather large category of taboos called "superstition." These characteristics, not to mention that of its accessibility, made the Isle of Publication a most advantageous location to conduct the 204 £2" ' 205 type of study which had been designed. Field work among the Anthro showed that while they do have a distinct cultural identity, they were not an exception to the generalization, "Every man is in certain respects like all other men" (Kluckhohn and Murray 1956:55). They were also found to share many cultural characteristics of other people living in this culture area. From the viewpoint of the observer it is important to make a distinction that some of the Anthro in the past did not seem to make--in fact their culture had led some of them to deny it. That distinction is between the legitimating origin myths (i.e. those beliefs which val- idate their view of themselves as a tribe) of the tribe and that which may more properly be called their pre- history. It is important to set off the origin myths of the Anthro from their prehistory for it is in their world view that in some ways they appear to be sharply con- trasted with most "primitive" peoples. The origin myths of many tribes serve to separate themselves from others as being uniquely human. Navahc, as well as other tribal names, bear quite a definite connotation of "people," and by implication others are not people. In extreme contrast to this the origin myths of the Anthro establishes an identity, and even in some sense a kinship, with all other tribes. All are peOple. 5 I' I . 1 I. H z i l I. J. i. i 206 Still further, many, if not most of the Anthro belong to the X totem; a totem, strangely enough, that is Open to all tribes and peOples. Among many tribes totemic beliefs provide the foundation for the clan structure within the tribe. Each Clan has its own totemic ancestor from which it traces descent and by which it makes significant kinship distinctions from those tribesmen who trace descent from a different totem. The Anthro, for the most part, appear to claim common descent with all tribes and peOpleS from a single totem. In fact, the inclusiveness of this totemic group extends to include apes and other similar animals as well. What seems rather strange to the observer is that the totem is not known but is being constantly sought. It has therefore been designated meaningfully in terms of the observer's culture, the X totem. Some, who by this totem claim common kinship with the Anthro tribe, are more bold and call their totem an ape, justifying this position by saying, "In fact, that common ancestor would certainly be called an ape or monkey in popular speech by anyone who saw it" (Simpson 1960:966). The Anthro totem then, if we may still call it a totem for all these differ- ences, serves to wipe out rather than_estab1ish clan and tribal distinctions and to form a global group called Hbmo sapiens. It also serves to establish certain mythical kinship ties with a still more inclusive group 207 called the anthropoids. It is the lament of one finding kinship with the Anthro through this totem that all peoples have not found this same covert and identity in X totem, "most people have not really entered (this) world... alas: -- only a minority of us" (Simpson 1960: 974)- The prehistory of the Anthro is constructed pri- marily from certain artifacts and evidence 'dug up' in areas on the island where these things appear to be found in concentration (libraries). From this evidence it appears that a peOple somewhere around the Mediterran- ean Sea developed a culture, the characteristic nature of which was to pursue a rather critical study of their own environment, history, and way of life. Out of this culture area came several tribes. Most important for the protohistory of the Anthro are the Philoso, the Huma, and a more recent group, the Natsaee. At some, not pre- , cisely determined time in the past it seems that due to certain intertribal contacts among these three groups, a rather small group broke off from the Philoso. Evidence is quite certain that this small band was held together 'by an unquestioning acceptance of the X totem. However, certain factors contributing to fission, either from the environment, culture, contact with the Huma, or possibly some combination of these led to a number of suCceeding divisions. The observer is reminded that this process of 208 fission is quite common among what is called 'primitive’ peOples. The result was that the newly formed group broke apart; one becoming the City of Socio and the other the Anthro tribe. Perhaps somewhat common factors led to the develOpment of other tribes such as the Psycho, the Econo and the Polysaee. It appears as though the cohesive and integrating force of the X totem had either diminished or in some fashion had been over- come. In fact, there appears to be some evidence of a clan structure developing within the Anthro tribe. This, however, is most strongly denied by the Anthro them- selves (Radcliffe-Brown 1952:188, 189, Herskovits 1959: 590, Kroeber 1948:841). This denial by the Anthro is no doubt due to cultural factors associated with belief in the X totem, which in a sense places a taboo on all tendencies toward the develOpment of clan structure. At least the observer is led to suspect that the X totem is still a potent factor in Anthro culture though it may be undergoing some, as yet undiscovered, process of change or redefinition. Will“ 45 3560 1 Blllll UH Y" (H S" "u mi " Em M H H H u 3 1293 03