EXAM
History & Theory of Anthropology
Content:
1. Placing Anthropology
2. Evolutionism
a. Spencer
b. Darwin
c. Tylor
d. Morgan
e. Antenor Firmin
3. Early Sociology
a. Durkheim
b. Weber
c. Marx
4. The Boasian Revolution
a. Franz Boas
b. Historical Particularism
5. Culture and Psychology
a. Margaret Mead
b. Ruth Benedict
6. Functionalism
a. Radcliffe-Brown
b. Malinowski
7. Neo-Evolutionism, Materialism & Ecology
a. Leslie White
b. Julian Steward
c. Marvin Harris
8. Structuralism
a. Claude Lévi-Strauss
9. Symbolic Anthropology
a. Clifford Geertz
b. Victor Turner
c. Anton Blok
10. Feminist Anthropology
a. Rubin
11. Actors and agents
a. Transactionalism
i. Fredrik Barth
b. Adam Smith
c. Marcel Mauss
d. Pierre Bourdieu
12. Re-placing Anthropology & postmodernism
a. Wolf
b. Asad
c. Ortner
d. Giddens
e. Sahlins
,Placing Anthropology
Francis Bacon
Empiricist
Five assumptions
o Objectivity and unbiased scientist
o Observational consensus: reality is independent
o Replicability
o Induction as method of reasoning
o Scientific process and accumulation
David Hume
Fallacies for empiricism
o Fallacy of Selectivity
We cannot observe everything; we must select
Some evidence is more relevant
o Fallacy of Objectivity
?
Noam Chomsky
Distinguishes:
o Nomological (deductive)
Universal, quantifiable relationships between phenomena
Third valuable can be calculated
o Statistical (Probabilistic)
Probable association between phenomena
Actual frequency: Determined statistically
Karl Popper
Falsification as method; theory can never be proven true, but false.
Provisionally accepted theory: A theory might be said true until falsified
Thomas Kuhn
Paradigms are incommensurable
Only when broader political/social/personal changes take place will shift
Period of paradigmatic consensus: “normal science”
Whorf & Sapir
The linguistic relativity hypothesis: Different languages, because of their differing
conceptual vocabularies and grammatical rules, predispose their speakers to view the
world in fundamentally different ways.
Ibn Khaldun
“Modern” historian
Pioneer of the social sciences in comparative studies
Materialist reasoning and adaptation to material circumstances
Theory of solidarity; later Durkheimian.
2
, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
First cultural relativist
Savage is a natural human
Jean-Jacques Rosseau
The noble savage as opposed to degenerate (nedgradert), civilized humans
Enlightenment (1600-1815: End of Napoleon wars)
Evolutionary schemes: Universal stages of development
o Savagery barbarism civilization
Rational thinking is the motor of change
Knowledge will free people from ignorance
o Progress; better is yet to come
Axiomatic: Social environment; culture, determines behavior.
Secularization of knowledge
John Locke (1632-1704)
Emphasized relationship with conditioning environment and human behavior
Biology ≠ behavior
The mind at birth is an empty cabinet; equal at birth; circumstances determine
Adam Ferguson (1723-1816)
Cultural evolution through the evolutionary scheme
Comparative method: primitive societies are our past
They think themselves out of savagery.
Rejected by Boas
Auguste Comte (1789-1857)
Thought is the motor of change; it occurs through advancement of reasoning
o Universal laws will replace supernatural explanations
Idealism: A society’s essence is in its belief system; ideas drive social change.
Father of Sociology
Coined Positivism
o Solutions to social issues with science. Order and progress.
Influence on Durkheim:
o Organismic analogy
o Laws of coexistence; synchronic/static; how institutions are related.
o Laws of succession; diachronic/dynamic; how institutions develop over time.
Positivism
Research reality without researcher’s identity and beliefs
Modeled after natural sciences; general laws
Functionalism; materialism; Harris?
Etic understanding; excludes the emic
Not reflexive
Theory
3
History & Theory of Anthropology
Content:
1. Placing Anthropology
2. Evolutionism
a. Spencer
b. Darwin
c. Tylor
d. Morgan
e. Antenor Firmin
3. Early Sociology
a. Durkheim
b. Weber
c. Marx
4. The Boasian Revolution
a. Franz Boas
b. Historical Particularism
5. Culture and Psychology
a. Margaret Mead
b. Ruth Benedict
6. Functionalism
a. Radcliffe-Brown
b. Malinowski
7. Neo-Evolutionism, Materialism & Ecology
a. Leslie White
b. Julian Steward
c. Marvin Harris
8. Structuralism
a. Claude Lévi-Strauss
9. Symbolic Anthropology
a. Clifford Geertz
b. Victor Turner
c. Anton Blok
10. Feminist Anthropology
a. Rubin
11. Actors and agents
a. Transactionalism
i. Fredrik Barth
b. Adam Smith
c. Marcel Mauss
d. Pierre Bourdieu
12. Re-placing Anthropology & postmodernism
a. Wolf
b. Asad
c. Ortner
d. Giddens
e. Sahlins
,Placing Anthropology
Francis Bacon
Empiricist
Five assumptions
o Objectivity and unbiased scientist
o Observational consensus: reality is independent
o Replicability
o Induction as method of reasoning
o Scientific process and accumulation
David Hume
Fallacies for empiricism
o Fallacy of Selectivity
We cannot observe everything; we must select
Some evidence is more relevant
o Fallacy of Objectivity
?
Noam Chomsky
Distinguishes:
o Nomological (deductive)
Universal, quantifiable relationships between phenomena
Third valuable can be calculated
o Statistical (Probabilistic)
Probable association between phenomena
Actual frequency: Determined statistically
Karl Popper
Falsification as method; theory can never be proven true, but false.
Provisionally accepted theory: A theory might be said true until falsified
Thomas Kuhn
Paradigms are incommensurable
Only when broader political/social/personal changes take place will shift
Period of paradigmatic consensus: “normal science”
Whorf & Sapir
The linguistic relativity hypothesis: Different languages, because of their differing
conceptual vocabularies and grammatical rules, predispose their speakers to view the
world in fundamentally different ways.
Ibn Khaldun
“Modern” historian
Pioneer of the social sciences in comparative studies
Materialist reasoning and adaptation to material circumstances
Theory of solidarity; later Durkheimian.
2
, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
First cultural relativist
Savage is a natural human
Jean-Jacques Rosseau
The noble savage as opposed to degenerate (nedgradert), civilized humans
Enlightenment (1600-1815: End of Napoleon wars)
Evolutionary schemes: Universal stages of development
o Savagery barbarism civilization
Rational thinking is the motor of change
Knowledge will free people from ignorance
o Progress; better is yet to come
Axiomatic: Social environment; culture, determines behavior.
Secularization of knowledge
John Locke (1632-1704)
Emphasized relationship with conditioning environment and human behavior
Biology ≠ behavior
The mind at birth is an empty cabinet; equal at birth; circumstances determine
Adam Ferguson (1723-1816)
Cultural evolution through the evolutionary scheme
Comparative method: primitive societies are our past
They think themselves out of savagery.
Rejected by Boas
Auguste Comte (1789-1857)
Thought is the motor of change; it occurs through advancement of reasoning
o Universal laws will replace supernatural explanations
Idealism: A society’s essence is in its belief system; ideas drive social change.
Father of Sociology
Coined Positivism
o Solutions to social issues with science. Order and progress.
Influence on Durkheim:
o Organismic analogy
o Laws of coexistence; synchronic/static; how institutions are related.
o Laws of succession; diachronic/dynamic; how institutions develop over time.
Positivism
Research reality without researcher’s identity and beliefs
Modeled after natural sciences; general laws
Functionalism; materialism; Harris?
Etic understanding; excludes the emic
Not reflexive
Theory
3
