Anthropological Theory

David Kaplan,Robert A. Manners

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351531603
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Scienze sociali
• Sous-sujet: Antropologia

Anthropological theory has been much discussed in recent years, yet the crucial questions still remain--how can it be defined, how is it developed, how is it to be applied, and how can one confirm it? The editors of Anthropological Theory answer these questions by presenting essays relating to various aspects of anthropological theory. Their selections from widely scattered and often difficult-to-obtain sources present a comprehensive set of writings that describe the current position and issues involved in theory.The development of field work in anthropology generated a tremendous emphasis on empirical data and research. The plethora of information awaiting collection and the enthusiasm with which the field embraced it so immersed anthropologists that they were unable to relate this new information to the field as a whole. Manners and Kaplan believe that this lack of generalization had a profoundly negative effect upon the discipline. Therefore, they look closely into the relationship between field work and theory in an opening essay and go on to present material that demonstrates the value and the necessity of theory in anthropology. Essays by anthropologists and other social scientists deal with ""explanation, "" evolution, ecology, ideology, structuralism, and a number of other issues reflecting throughout the editors' conviction that anthropology is a science, the goal of which is to produce generalizations about sociocultural phenomena.The book provides necessary perspective for examining and evaluating the crucial intellectual concerns of modern anthropology and will therefore be important for the work of every anthropologist.

PART IOverview

1

On the Concept of Culture

Leslie A. White

Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, by Kroeber and Kluckhohn, is presented as “a critical review of definitions and a general discussion of culture theory” (p. 157). Its purpose is threefold: “First,… to make available in one place for purposes of reference a collection of definitions by anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers and others…. Second,… [to document] the gradual emergence and refinement of a concept… [the authors] believe to be of great… significance. Third,… to assist other investigators in reaching agreement and greater precision in definition by pointing out and commenting upon agreements and disagreements in the definitions thus far propounded” (p. 4).

The work is divided into four parts. Part I deals with the “General History of the Word Culture” (30 pp.). Part II, “Definitions” (38 pp.), offers 164 definitions of culture—”close to three hundred ‘definitions’” are included in the monograph as a whole (p. 149). Part III, “Some Statements about Culture” (58 pp.), presents more extensive quotations from numerous authors in which the “nature of culture,” the relationship between culture and language, culture and society, individuals, etc., are treated. In Part IV, “Summary and Conclusions,” (46 pp.), the authors review the history of the concept of culture, survey critically the numerous and varied conceptions now extant, and offer their own conception of culture. There are two appendices by Alfred G. Meyer: (a) on the concept of culture in Germany and Russia, and (b) on the use of the term “culture” in the Soviet Union.

Kroeber, Kluckhohn, and their five research assistants have gone through a great mass of literature, tracing the history of the use of the term culture and collecting innumerable definitions of, allusions to, and statements about culture. Their history of the use of the term will no doubt impress some readers as somewhat tedious and pedantic. And few readers will require “close to three hundred definitions” of culture to make them realize that great diversity of usage prevails. But these tasks needed doing, and the authors have done them so thoroughly that no one else need do them again.

“The most significant accomplishment of anthropology in the first half of the twentieth century,” Kroeber has said, “has been the extension and clarification of the concept of culture.” I am not at all prepared to accept this statement. It is true that the concept of culture has been exended to fields other than anthropology; but that it has become “clarified” in the process is something that I doubt very much, and I do not believe that the monograph under review will substantiate this claim. On the contrary, I believe that confusion has increased as conceptions of culture have been multiplied and diversified.

Thirty years ago most anthropologists—in the United States at least—knew what they meant by culture. And most of them meant, I believe, what Tylor meant in 1871 when he formulated his “classic” definition. It was this conception that Lowie, for example, subscribed to in the first paragraph of Primitive Society. But who knows what Mr. X means by culture today? Culture is “learned behavior”; it is not behavior at all but an “abstraction from behavior”; it is “intangible,” a “logical construct”; it is a “psychic defense system,” a “precipitate of social interaction,” a “stream of ideas”; it “consists of n different social signals that are correlated with m social responses,” etc. One anthropologist at least has gone so far as to question the “reality” of culture. It is difficult to discern much “clarification” of conception during the past twenty-five years. On the contrary, many, no doubt, will sympathize with Radcliffe-Brown who has felt that “the word culture has undergone a number of degradations which have rendered it unfortunate as a scientific term.”

The problem of “clarifying the concept of culture,” which I take to be the chief purpose of this monograph, is, it seems to me, primarily a philosophical and semantic problem. And I finished the treatise with the feeling that the authors have not been overly successful in their attempts to reach an adequate or satisfactory solution to it. They run head on into such ontological problems as the nature of culture, its reality, its abstract or concrete character, and so on, without quite knowing how to handle them— or at least without showing the reader how to handle them. And they become involved, if not entangled, in semantic difficulties which they appear at times not to recognize, or at least to appreciate fully.

We may distinguish two quite distinct kinds of problems: (1) What is the chemical composition of the atmosphere of the sun? Is it determinable? What is the velocity of light? Is it determinable? (2) To what class of phenomena do we wish to apply the term bug, or gentleman? In the first we are concerned with sensory exploration of the external world: Does the sun's atmosphere contain hydrogen or doesn’t it? Does light travel 186 or 187 thousand miles per second? In the second kind of problem we merely have to decide how we shall use words. Are spiders to be included in the category—labeled with the word—bug or not? If a man does such and such do we wish to call him—include him in the category—gentleman?

Is culture a thing, or class of things, in the external world whose nature we have to determine as we would ascertain the chemical composition of the sun or the velocity of light? Or is culture a word the use of which we have arbitrarily to determine—like deciding whether to include spiders or butterflies in the category bug?

Some anthropologists seem to feel that a conception of culture must depend upon our ability to ascertain the properties, or nature, of things in the external world. Thus, D. G. Haring asks “Is Culture Definable?” (emphasis added) and comes to the conclusion, as I interpret him, that it is not—just as one might conclude that the chemical composition of the sun is not determinable.

Kroeber and Kluckhohn do not make it clear which kind of problem one is faced with in regard to conceptions of culture. They appear to feel, however, that it is the “chemical composition of the sun” kind, for they say that one of the purposes of their study is “to assist other investigators [sic] in reaching… greater precision in definition…” (p. 4), and they tell us what culture “basically” is (p. 155). Investigators are indeed needed to ascertain the chemical composition of the sun. But we do not need to resort to any investigation whatever to decide whether we wish to include spiders in the category bug or not. Bug-ness is not a thing in, or an attribute of, the external world whose nature we have to discover through investigation, like the chemical composition of the sun's atmosphere. Neither, we suggest, is culture. Culture, like bug, is a word that we may use to label a class of phenomena—things and events —in the external world. We may apply this label as we please; its use is determined by ourselves, not by the external world. “It cannot be too clearly understood,” says Whitehead, “that in science, technical terms are names arbitrarily assigned, like Christian names to children. There can be no question of the names being right or wrong. They may [however] be judicious or injudicious…” (emphasis added).

As for “precision of definitions,” definitions are not more or less precise—like measurements of the velocity of light. A definition of bug that includes spiders is neither more nor less precise than one that does not. Needless to say, a “definition” that does not mark boundaries, set limits, in short, which does not define, is not a definition. “Culture is learned behavior” is precise enough; behavior patterns are acquired by learning or they are not; those that are so acquired may arbitrarily be labeled culture. The same can be said of “culture is a psychic defense system,” or “a stream of ideas.”

To be sure, a definition may be precise without being useful or fruitful in scientific interpretation. “A doko is any man between the ages of 23 and 37, who has red hair, wears number 10 shoes, and has one glass eye,” is precise enough as a definition, but it has no apparent value. Neither does, or can, a definition tell us all we want to know about the thing defined, just as no witness can ever tell “the truth, the whole truth, etc.”; “culture is learned behavior” is the beginning of one intellectual process as it is the end of another. Definitions are conceptual tools, man-made and fashioned for certain purposes, to do certain things—in science to render experience intelligible. A conception of culture must be more than precise; it must be fruitful; its value is proportional to its contribution to understanding. Until anthropologists distinguish clearly between two quite different kinds of problems—determining the chemical composition of the sun, and determining the use of the word bug—in short, until they distinguish sharply between things and events in the external world, and verbal concepts with which these phenomena are represented, they will continue to grope and flounder, trying to discover what culture “basically is,” striving for “greater precision of definition.”

Professors Kroeber and Kluckhohn appear to be definitely committed to the view that “culture is an abstraction”: “… culture is inevitably an abstraction” (p. 61); it is “basically a form or pattern… an abstraction…” (p. 155). They do not tell us explicitly and precisely what they mean by abstraction; we are left to figure that out for ourselves. They seem to use the term in two different senses: (1) a form or pattern, and (2) a statistical concept of average or mean. They emphasize repeatedly the point that culture is not behavior, but something abstracted from behavior (pp. 114, 155–56, 189, etc.). Behavior, they say, “seems… to be that within whose mass culture exists and from which it is conceptually extricated or abstracted” (p. 156). Concrete behavior is the subject matter of psychology, according to their view, whereas forms or patterns, abstracted from behavior, are culture and are therefore the subject-matter of cultural anthropology (p. 155). Anthropologists have tended to be “concrete rather than theoretical minded about culture” (p. 156). And Kroeber and Kluckhohn feel that “the greatest advance in contemporary anthropology is probably the increasing recognition that there is something more to culture than artifacts, linguistic texts, and lists of atomized traits” (p. 62). In short, to proceed from conceiving of culture as a class of objective observable things and events in the external world to regarding it as an intangible abstraction is a significant achievement.

A man casts a ballot: is this behavior or culture? Kroeber and Kluckhohn would say that dropping the ballot in the box is behavior, not culture; culture would be something intangible, a form or pattern, “extricated or abstracted from” this act. Is a Chinese porcelain vase an article of merchandise, an objet d’art, or a scientific specimen? It all depends. A vase is a vase. It becomes a commodity when it is placed in one kind of context, an objet d’art when placed in another. Similarly, casting a ballot—dropping a piece of paper in a box—is an act, an event. It “is” what it is. When we interpret this act in terms of the ideas, sentiments and habits of an individual we may call it behavior and call the kind of interpretation psychological. When we explain it in the context of the extra-somatic tradition of things and events dependent upon symboling we may call it culture, and the explanation culturological. The thing, the event, is the same in either case; we merely refer it to different contexts for purposes of explanation. The matter need not be one of concrete versus abstract at all, but merely different contexts to which the event is referred for purposes of explanation. And there need be no antithesis between concrete and theoretical; a physicist may be as theoretical as you wish in his interpretation of concrete particles. Conrtariwise, it does not follow that one is more advanced theoretically because he defines his subject matter as “abstraction.”

“Even a culture trait is an abstraction… [it] is an ‘ideal type’ because no two pots are identical nor are two marriage ceremonies ever held in precisely the same way” (p. 169). Are we then to cease calling pots, axes, songs, rituals, etc., culture traits because no two items in a class are exactly alike? Could we not say that a culture trait is any thing or event—objective and observable, like a pot or a marriage ceremony—that is dependent upon symboling? Could we not say that pot is a culture trait, and that pot is the name of a class of objects and also of any member of that class? This, of course, is being “concrete minded,” which is just what Kroeber and Kluckhohn want to get away from.

“Culture is not behavior but something abstracted from behavior.” Similarly, a pot, or pots, are not culture; it is the “ideal type” of pots that is culture. An “ideal type” is a statistical conception in the mind of the anthropologist. We now face this question squarely: are we to use the term culture to label objective things and events in the external world, or conceptions in the anthropologist's mind? Kroeber and Kluckhohn, it seems to me, are definitely committed to the latter course. I feel also that they are not fully aware of the consequences to which their “culture is an abstraction” definition commits them.

No two foxes are exactly alike—just as no two pots are. But we do not wish to say that fox is an abstraction, an “ideal type” to which all the little concrete bushy-tailed creatures correspond in varying degrees. Fox is the name of a class of objects and also of each member of this class. “Ideal type” is actually a way of designating this class, in terms of an average or mean about which the individual members cluster. The situation in which the cultural anthropologist finds himself is exactly like that confronting the mammalogist, the physicist or any other scientist. We have objective, observable things and events in the external world (i.e., outside our own individual minds) on the one hand, and conceptions in our minds with which we represent these things and events and with which we try to render them comprehensible, on the other. The cultural anthropologist can use the term culture to label a class of things and events in the external world—as Tylor did and as generations of anthropologists have done until recently—or he can use the term to label conceptions in his own mind—which we suspect he does not fully recognize as such because he calls them “ideal types” or “abstractions” whose place of residence is not so obvious. So can the mammalogist use the term fox to label a statistical conception in his own mind rather than a quadruped with a bushy tail. But if the anthropologist is to use the term culture to label conceptions in the mind, is not Cornelius Osgood to be complimented for having made this conception explicit: “Culture consists of all ideas concerning human beings which have been communicated to one's mind…” (p. 66)?

Despite Kroeber and Kluckhohn's feeling that “the greatest advance in contemporary anthropological theory” is the shift from “concrete-mindedness” to traffic in abstractions, I venture to predict that anthropology will again revert to defining culture in terms of concrete, objective, observable things and events in the external world. I make this prediction with some confidence because it is the procedure in every other science—in all of the more mature sciences, at least—and we believe that cultural anthropology will mature some day. Fox is the name of a class of objects; electron is the name of a thing in the external world—it traverses an observable path in a cloud chamber. A “gene” or a “magnetic field” may not be directly observable, but the referents of these terms are unequivocably things or events in the external world. It goes without saying that mammalogists and physicists have conceptions of foxes and electrons in their minds. But they do not readily confuse foxes and electrons with conceptions of the same. The time will come again when cultural anthropologists will once more distinguish a particular class of objective phenomena in the external world as their subject matter, just as every other scientist does, and they will label their subject matter culture, just as other scientists label their subject matter atoms, mammals, parasites, etc.

Kroeber and Kluckhohn attach great importance to values. But what are values? The authors make a very considerable attempt to explain them to us, but with rather little success. “They are the products of men, of men having bodies…”; they are “intangible,” and “empathy” is required to “perceive” [sic] them; but they receive objective expression and “can be viewed as observable, describable and comparable phenomena of nature” (pp. 156, 172–73). Values are imponderable and unmeasurable (p. 174), but they are definitely “part of nature, not outside it” (p. 172)—as if science could deal with, or mankind experience, anything outside of nature. “Values are primarily social and cultural [what are they secondarily?]: social in scope, parts of culture in substance [sic culture is an abstraction, it must be remembered] and form” (p. 172). Values have their “locus or place of residence” in “individual persons and nowhere else” (p. 172). They are “the structural essence” of culture (p. 172). Thus, a value is the structural essence of an abstraction. Kroeber and Kluckhohn need not be surprised if some readers do not always comprehend them and follow them at all points. Finally, values “provide the only basis for the fully intelligible comprehension of culture” (p. 173). If only we had a basis for a “fully intelligible comprehension” of values!

Is value the name of something that people or culture do? Or, does it designate how something is organized or done? Or is value the name of a way that some anthropologists feel-and-think about culture? Value is a word employed in ordinary and in philosophic discourse. It has some connotations, rather vague and indefinite, and it is also soaked with feeling. Kroeber and Kluckhohn take this term and then try to determine what, in the external world, corresponds with it. Would it not be better to begin with observation of things and events as we find them in the external world and then to determine what word-concepts are needed to represent them? The latter course, if followed scientifically, could, of course, lead to use of the term value. But we doubt very much that it would. Value has been so identified through usage with the subjective and the imponderable that we doubt if it can—or will—ever be usable as a scientific term.

Values are intimately related to “cultural relativism.” Cultures are comparable, the authors tell us, but comparison on an objective basis is limited and of little significance, apparently (p. 176). Cultures derive their meaning and significance from their value systems. Cultures are therefore imponderable as their values are imponderable. Each culture is to be measured by its own yardstick; a yardstick that would measure all cultures—such as the amount of energy harnessed and put to work per capita per year, or the amount of food, measured in calories, produced per unit of human energy— they call “absolute,” and they will have no truck with absolutes. They defend their theory of cultural relativism against its critics and opponents—whom they do not identify—with a warmth and vigor that suggests a feeling on their part that it needs defending. They anticipate “some attempts to escape from relativism” (p. 175). But cultural relativism is an “inescapable fact” that has been “completely established” (pp. 175–76, 178). And, we are told peremptorily, “there must be no attempt to explain it away or to deprecate its importance because it is inconvenient, hard to take, hard to live with” (p. 178). And that, it would seem, is that.

There are many other points in this monograph that invite and need discussion, but our review has already grown long. We might merely mention a few of them, however.

“It is perfectly true… that culture ‘conditions’ individuals but is also ‘conditioned’ by them” (p. 110); “personality shapes and changes culture but is in turn shaped by culture” (p. 114). This proposition, which seems so obviously valid—or reasonable—to many anthropologists is one that this reviewer would challenge; it is confusing or misleading, to say the least.

We find the old dichotomy “history and science,” which obscures the evolutionary process by identifying it with history (p. 161): “If a natural classification implicitly contains an evolutionary development—that is, a history…” (p. 175)—as if evolution and history were synonyms. But we have gone over this ground before.

We were disturbed, in reading this monograph, by what appears to us to be ambiguities, inconsistencies and uncertainties. Culture is usually an abstraction; but it is also “an abstract description…” (p. 182), and sometimes it seems to be something observable in the external world. It “must never be forgotten… that only persons and not cultures interact…” (p. 186). Yet, “at the cultural level of abstraction it is perfectly proper to speak ...

Table des matières

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copy Right Page
• Content Page
• Introduction: The Plan of the Book
• Notes on Theory and Non-theory in Anthropology
• PART I: OVERVIEW
• PART II: EXPLANATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
• PART III: METHODOLOGY
• PART IV: FUNCTIONALISM, EVOLUTION, AND HISTORY
• PART V: CULTURE AND PERSONALITY
• PART VI: ECOLOGY
• PART VII: IDEOLOGY, LANGUAGE, AND VALUES
• PART VIII: STRUCTURALISM AND FORMAL ANALYSIS
• Selected Bibliography