Franz Boas: The Man of the Times
It is quite apparent from the start of his 1896 speech, that, Franz Boas was set to reorient the way anthropology had been done. He believed that before one could make broad sweeping statements in the way humanity behaved culturally that it should have the data to back it up. He felt that those making pronouncements from their arm chair analysis with their comparative and analogical analysis were incorrect.
By way of a story illustration, let me explain. I recently reread one of my favorite science fiction authors—Isaac Asimov. He wrote as series of books called Foundation Novels. Book one, Foundation, has a character, within the story, that is horrified by the thought of actually doing field work. The character believes as he tells the story’s protagonist, why re-verify the work that has already been done. Simply, the archaeologist and anthropologist just need to compare and contrast the data, from some eight hundred years previous, to get to the correct conclusion. Essentially, the character relies on the authority of the experts—and surely through their analogy as well as “scientific” data was enough—yes?[1]
Later, in the chapter, the main protagonist challenges his experts, the scientists of The Foundation, of being too reliant on their expertise. He says the lack of innovation, essentially, has kept them stodgy, old, and decaying. The Empire, as he puts it, is dying because they no longer can maintain their control in the periphery[2]. He admonishes the scientists for not following the scientific method: observe, test, verify.
It is the verification Franz Boas sought when he made the speech. He criticizes the hallowed annals of anthropology of being stuck in the comparative and analogy perspective without fully verifying the results. The idea, he implies, that humanity arrives at similar points, because of some uniform laws governing the human mind (a. k. a. physic unity of mankind) is, at the least, imprecise and, at the worst, a gross misconduct in trying to establish factual comparisons in regards to the hypothesis. One might say, they replaced one faith based (degeneration) for another “physic unity of mankind.”
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, physic unity of mankind was being touted as the answer to the evolution of civilization. Boas did not support cultural evolutionists’ theories. What Boas advocated[3] is simple—let’s go out collect and verify the data through induction—and let the facts speak for itself. He set the stage for other anthropologists to be able to recognize the context, in which, data is not analogous. The similarities of inventions, customs, and belief together with the continuity of their distribution through the limited area of less modern societies were to be observed for antiquity, and use field work to collect data for induction.
For many, Franz Boas is considered the father of American Anthropology. He set into motion the four disciplines or approaches of anthropology, the study of prehistory (archaeology), linguistic, physical anthropology along with cultural observation.[4] He believes that anthropology can be treated as a science, enough to equate it with physics or biology.[5] Boas felt that an overview of the data is quite important and until then no speculation can be done.
In the reading, titled, “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology” Franz Boas attacks the social Darwinians and unilineal theorist, who uses evolution as a template to explain cultural perspectives within a society.[6] In essence, those things that is self-evident for a culture. Humanity’s universals that are derived compel a civilization forward. In the form of evolution, in the totality of what was simple to the most complex. The social evolutionist (which Boas was not) believes that a culture can be analogous, proven, without historical presentation, or data, to validate or verify the presumptions of civilization. For Boas this is illogical.
Boas and his followers, such as A. L. Kroeber, Subir, and Whorf are right to ask for verification. Essentially, in the new age[7] of the scientific method, how else can one prove one’s theories? The process of inductive validation with the collection and processing of data is very important for Boas in order to secure cultural trends and culture set values[8] so that they can be explained and accepted. Boas believes that the individual set into motion the historical trends in which a society enables and emboldens itself.[9] In the sense that, a society, a culture, revitalizes[10] those values that are moral imperative[11] for a civilization to survive.
Furthermore, this survival of the culture is dependent (or interdependent) [12]on the context of the historical. For Boas, he says, “Historical inquiry must be considered… [and that] when historical connection between two phenomena[13] can be proved, they must not be admitted as independent evidence…”
Therefore, in Boas’ view once the evidence of common shared traits between two cultures can be proven one does not make them mutually exclusive from one another as if they developed separately, but they are to be entered as one in the compiled data set. Thus, these “phenomena,” cultures, are to be considered shared traits[14] that have been diffused. This perspective countered unilineal evolutionists view that cultures comes from one source. Boas criticizes it for the reason that, it made more sense that differing cultures living in the same geographic area may exchange cultural ideas and he felt that the apparent the over simplification of human universality as being intrinsic to human evolution, cultural evolution that is, bore no credence because of variability of causation.
In the reading by Warms and McGee[15], titled Historical Particularism, discoursed on the contribution of Boas and his students; and, the affect he and his student had on anthropology. Their, Warms and McGee, main thrust is his school of thought[16], his effort to move anthropology from analogy and comparative studies to the pragmatism of the scientific method of observation, testing, and verification set anthropology on its course.
In addition, the authors’ view of Boas indicated that his contribution has a profound effect despite some of the other prominent school of thoughts, at the time, and are contrary to his, such as cultural evolutionism and physic unity of humankind. Boas prima fascia argument is that these aforementioned theories are ethnocentric, racist, and oppressive, in that, they deny the equality of the other races—and that they are contrary to the scientific method.
Moreover, the authors, Warms and McGee, in their article try to endear Boas as the father figure of anthropology. They portray him as an early civil rights proponent and a man ahead of his time.[17] And, they provide the evidence on his insistence on equality earns him praise and criticism[18]. They say his dying words were, “one must never tire that racism is a monstrous error or an impudent lie….”[19]
In the final reading, “The Methods of Ethnology,” is by Franz Boas. It is a reflection on the early days of anthropology (from our viewpoint) on why it should be considered a science. He also discourses on the trends within anthropology (of the day) cultural evolutionism; and psychic unity of mankind.
These trends are part of a belief system by comparative and analogous anthropologists who feel that is the broad strokes of comparison is enough to illustrate the structure of humanity’s universals commonality. Boas feels differently; that, these universals or commonalities requires proof. The collection of data was paramount. And, once enough data is compiled trends will reveal themselves. On the other hand for unilinealists and comparative scientists, these common “truths” seem to curry exposition to humanity’s nature and modernity, or lack thereof, to represent its hierarchy of civilization. Thus, the culture traits in human beings are innate. Nevertheless, Boas feels these traits are shared (not innate) diffused, and had a historical basis; in that, these traits are duplicable, and not dispersal from once source point[20]but from multiple candidacies[21], and multiple varieties for duplication among humanity’s pupil.[22]
In his essay, Boas also tries to addresses his critics, and to his credit tries to answer them. However, his approach is lost on those who are stuck in their ethnocentrism and flawed theories. His students, Boas’, follow his formula, but also with the help of some modeling from Sigmund Freud, use that collection of data for their interpretative models. But, Boas and his students are not caught up in Freud’s broad strokes regarding sexuality and father replacement. Boas and his students still believe in the inductive process and help create the foundational cores for modern anthropology.
[1]Isaac Asimov Foundation Novels: Foundation published by Bantam Books paperback edition see the pages 75-76. The characters in the discussion are Lord Dorwin and Salvor Hardin. Hardin inquiries of Lord Dorwin were to assess the state of the Empire in relation to the Foundation, and to try to figure what the solution of Seldon Crisis was.
[2] Later in the chapter, Hardin passionately tells The Foundation scientists of what he believes the state of the Empire as well as the state of science (see pages 87-89).
[3] This is the assertion of authors Warms and McGee (see pages 116-117) in their book An Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History 4th edition.
[4] See page 118 in Warms and McGee Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History 4th edition.
[5] I think personally, Franz Boas, would be disappointed that anthropology has become so specialized, but quite impressed with science of it.
[6] In other words, those ideas that are predispose as a civilization, as a society, as particular universals that are true for humanity.
[7] The nineteenth was teeming with scientific with inventions. The new observers (new in the sense that men of philosophy were willing to transcend their religious belief) of the world, scientists, were questioning their natural surroundings.
[8] Those ideas and core values that are recapitulated and accepted within a society are reflected back to the individual.
[9] See Anthony F. C. Wallace’s cycles of revitalization in his book, Religion: An Anthropological View.
[10] Anthony Wallace’s cycles of revitalization explains how a society retains traditions and core values (see page 102-166).
[11] Here, I am using the phrase, “moral imperative” as a selective force determinant, in that, the community as a whole, deems itself greater than the individual for itself survival (see human sacrifice as an example).
[12] Think Herbert Spencer’s The Social Organism on how a society member and members are dependent on one another—linked similarly like the inner workings of the human body.
[13] This is a reference to physic human unity. The implication is that low and high cultures evolve along the same lines, identical lines even, to become civilized. (Note—the above quote is from the Boas essay—The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology).
[14] Common development that follow Boas’ the rules of verification were basically if the two parties involved shared geographical area, had common historical event, and the ability to share cultural ideas through diffusion.
[15] Reading is found in the Warms’ and McGee’s book Anthropological Theory: An Introduction History 4th edition.
[16] Officially Boas did not have “school of thought” in the sense of theory. However, when one set the core values of a culture, i.e. anthropology, then I think, it is not taking liberty to say that Boas school of thought was theory of inductive reasoning through the collection of data.
[17] He wrote the lead article for the second issue for the NAACP magazine The Crisis (page 118).
[18] He criticized deeply the view of race based anthropology, and during WWI, referred to President Woodrow Wilson a hypocrite which led to him being censured from the AAA (American Anthropological Association). The censure was not reversed until 2005.
[19] See page 119 in Warms and McGee 4th edition…
[20] Some believed that culture was dispersed from one source like Egypt.
[21] Possibility
[22] Primitive societies
By way of a story illustration, let me explain. I recently reread one of my favorite science fiction authors—Isaac Asimov. He wrote as series of books called Foundation Novels. Book one, Foundation, has a character, within the story, that is horrified by the thought of actually doing field work. The character believes as he tells the story’s protagonist, why re-verify the work that has already been done. Simply, the archaeologist and anthropologist just need to compare and contrast the data, from some eight hundred years previous, to get to the correct conclusion. Essentially, the character relies on the authority of the experts—and surely through their analogy as well as “scientific” data was enough—yes?[1]
Later, in the chapter, the main protagonist challenges his experts, the scientists of The Foundation, of being too reliant on their expertise. He says the lack of innovation, essentially, has kept them stodgy, old, and decaying. The Empire, as he puts it, is dying because they no longer can maintain their control in the periphery[2]. He admonishes the scientists for not following the scientific method: observe, test, verify.
It is the verification Franz Boas sought when he made the speech. He criticizes the hallowed annals of anthropology of being stuck in the comparative and analogy perspective without fully verifying the results. The idea, he implies, that humanity arrives at similar points, because of some uniform laws governing the human mind (a. k. a. physic unity of mankind) is, at the least, imprecise and, at the worst, a gross misconduct in trying to establish factual comparisons in regards to the hypothesis. One might say, they replaced one faith based (degeneration) for another “physic unity of mankind.”
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, physic unity of mankind was being touted as the answer to the evolution of civilization. Boas did not support cultural evolutionists’ theories. What Boas advocated[3] is simple—let’s go out collect and verify the data through induction—and let the facts speak for itself. He set the stage for other anthropologists to be able to recognize the context, in which, data is not analogous. The similarities of inventions, customs, and belief together with the continuity of their distribution through the limited area of less modern societies were to be observed for antiquity, and use field work to collect data for induction.
For many, Franz Boas is considered the father of American Anthropology. He set into motion the four disciplines or approaches of anthropology, the study of prehistory (archaeology), linguistic, physical anthropology along with cultural observation.[4] He believes that anthropology can be treated as a science, enough to equate it with physics or biology.[5] Boas felt that an overview of the data is quite important and until then no speculation can be done.
In the reading, titled, “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology” Franz Boas attacks the social Darwinians and unilineal theorist, who uses evolution as a template to explain cultural perspectives within a society.[6] In essence, those things that is self-evident for a culture. Humanity’s universals that are derived compel a civilization forward. In the form of evolution, in the totality of what was simple to the most complex. The social evolutionist (which Boas was not) believes that a culture can be analogous, proven, without historical presentation, or data, to validate or verify the presumptions of civilization. For Boas this is illogical.
Boas and his followers, such as A. L. Kroeber, Subir, and Whorf are right to ask for verification. Essentially, in the new age[7] of the scientific method, how else can one prove one’s theories? The process of inductive validation with the collection and processing of data is very important for Boas in order to secure cultural trends and culture set values[8] so that they can be explained and accepted. Boas believes that the individual set into motion the historical trends in which a society enables and emboldens itself.[9] In the sense that, a society, a culture, revitalizes[10] those values that are moral imperative[11] for a civilization to survive.
Furthermore, this survival of the culture is dependent (or interdependent) [12]on the context of the historical. For Boas, he says, “Historical inquiry must be considered… [and that] when historical connection between two phenomena[13] can be proved, they must not be admitted as independent evidence…”
Therefore, in Boas’ view once the evidence of common shared traits between two cultures can be proven one does not make them mutually exclusive from one another as if they developed separately, but they are to be entered as one in the compiled data set. Thus, these “phenomena,” cultures, are to be considered shared traits[14] that have been diffused. This perspective countered unilineal evolutionists view that cultures comes from one source. Boas criticizes it for the reason that, it made more sense that differing cultures living in the same geographic area may exchange cultural ideas and he felt that the apparent the over simplification of human universality as being intrinsic to human evolution, cultural evolution that is, bore no credence because of variability of causation.
In the reading by Warms and McGee[15], titled Historical Particularism, discoursed on the contribution of Boas and his students; and, the affect he and his student had on anthropology. Their, Warms and McGee, main thrust is his school of thought[16], his effort to move anthropology from analogy and comparative studies to the pragmatism of the scientific method of observation, testing, and verification set anthropology on its course.
In addition, the authors’ view of Boas indicated that his contribution has a profound effect despite some of the other prominent school of thoughts, at the time, and are contrary to his, such as cultural evolutionism and physic unity of humankind. Boas prima fascia argument is that these aforementioned theories are ethnocentric, racist, and oppressive, in that, they deny the equality of the other races—and that they are contrary to the scientific method.
Moreover, the authors, Warms and McGee, in their article try to endear Boas as the father figure of anthropology. They portray him as an early civil rights proponent and a man ahead of his time.[17] And, they provide the evidence on his insistence on equality earns him praise and criticism[18]. They say his dying words were, “one must never tire that racism is a monstrous error or an impudent lie….”[19]
In the final reading, “The Methods of Ethnology,” is by Franz Boas. It is a reflection on the early days of anthropology (from our viewpoint) on why it should be considered a science. He also discourses on the trends within anthropology (of the day) cultural evolutionism; and psychic unity of mankind.
These trends are part of a belief system by comparative and analogous anthropologists who feel that is the broad strokes of comparison is enough to illustrate the structure of humanity’s universals commonality. Boas feels differently; that, these universals or commonalities requires proof. The collection of data was paramount. And, once enough data is compiled trends will reveal themselves. On the other hand for unilinealists and comparative scientists, these common “truths” seem to curry exposition to humanity’s nature and modernity, or lack thereof, to represent its hierarchy of civilization. Thus, the culture traits in human beings are innate. Nevertheless, Boas feels these traits are shared (not innate) diffused, and had a historical basis; in that, these traits are duplicable, and not dispersal from once source point[20]but from multiple candidacies[21], and multiple varieties for duplication among humanity’s pupil.[22]
In his essay, Boas also tries to addresses his critics, and to his credit tries to answer them. However, his approach is lost on those who are stuck in their ethnocentrism and flawed theories. His students, Boas’, follow his formula, but also with the help of some modeling from Sigmund Freud, use that collection of data for their interpretative models. But, Boas and his students are not caught up in Freud’s broad strokes regarding sexuality and father replacement. Boas and his students still believe in the inductive process and help create the foundational cores for modern anthropology.
[1]Isaac Asimov Foundation Novels: Foundation published by Bantam Books paperback edition see the pages 75-76. The characters in the discussion are Lord Dorwin and Salvor Hardin. Hardin inquiries of Lord Dorwin were to assess the state of the Empire in relation to the Foundation, and to try to figure what the solution of Seldon Crisis was.
[2] Later in the chapter, Hardin passionately tells The Foundation scientists of what he believes the state of the Empire as well as the state of science (see pages 87-89).
[3] This is the assertion of authors Warms and McGee (see pages 116-117) in their book An Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History 4th edition.
[4] See page 118 in Warms and McGee Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History 4th edition.
[5] I think personally, Franz Boas, would be disappointed that anthropology has become so specialized, but quite impressed with science of it.
[6] In other words, those ideas that are predispose as a civilization, as a society, as particular universals that are true for humanity.
[7] The nineteenth was teeming with scientific with inventions. The new observers (new in the sense that men of philosophy were willing to transcend their religious belief) of the world, scientists, were questioning their natural surroundings.
[8] Those ideas and core values that are recapitulated and accepted within a society are reflected back to the individual.
[9] See Anthony F. C. Wallace’s cycles of revitalization in his book, Religion: An Anthropological View.
[10] Anthony Wallace’s cycles of revitalization explains how a society retains traditions and core values (see page 102-166).
[11] Here, I am using the phrase, “moral imperative” as a selective force determinant, in that, the community as a whole, deems itself greater than the individual for itself survival (see human sacrifice as an example).
[12] Think Herbert Spencer’s The Social Organism on how a society member and members are dependent on one another—linked similarly like the inner workings of the human body.
[13] This is a reference to physic human unity. The implication is that low and high cultures evolve along the same lines, identical lines even, to become civilized. (Note—the above quote is from the Boas essay—The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology).
[14] Common development that follow Boas’ the rules of verification were basically if the two parties involved shared geographical area, had common historical event, and the ability to share cultural ideas through diffusion.
[15] Reading is found in the Warms’ and McGee’s book Anthropological Theory: An Introduction History 4th edition.
[16] Officially Boas did not have “school of thought” in the sense of theory. However, when one set the core values of a culture, i.e. anthropology, then I think, it is not taking liberty to say that Boas school of thought was theory of inductive reasoning through the collection of data.
[17] He wrote the lead article for the second issue for the NAACP magazine The Crisis (page 118).
[18] He criticized deeply the view of race based anthropology, and during WWI, referred to President Woodrow Wilson a hypocrite which led to him being censured from the AAA (American Anthropological Association). The censure was not reversed until 2005.
[19] See page 119 in Warms and McGee 4th edition…
[20] Some believed that culture was dispersed from one source like Egypt.
[21] Possibility
[22] Primitive societies
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