The Philosophy of Anthropology

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The Philosophy of Anthropology

The Philosophy of Anthropology refers to the central philosophicalperspectives which underpin, or have underpinned, the dominant schools inanthropological thinking. It is distinct from Philosophical Anthropology which

attempts to dene and understand what it means to be human.

This article provides an overview of the most salient anthropological schools,the philosophies which underpin them and the philosophical debatessurrounding these schools within anthropology. It specically operates withinthese limits because the broader discussions surrounding the Philosophy ofScience and the Philosophy of Social Science have been dealt with at lengthelsewhere in this encyclopedia. oreover, the specic philosophicalperspectives have also been discussed in great depth in other contributions,so they will be elucidated to the e!tent that this is useful to comprehendingtheir relationship with anthropology. In e!amining the Philosophy of

Anthropology, it is necessary to draw some, even if cautious borders,between anthropology and other disciplines. Accordingly, in drawing uponanthropological discussions, we will dene, as anthropologists, scholars whoidentify as such and who publish in anthropological "ournals and the like. Inaddition, early anthropologists will be selected by virtue of their interest inpeasant culture and non#$estern, non#capitalist and stateless forms ofhuman organi%ation.

The article specically aims to summari%e the philosophies underpinninganthropology, focusing on the way in which anthropology has drawn uponthem. The philosophies themselves have been dealt with in depth elsewhere

in this encyclopedia. It has been suggested by philosophers of social sciencethat anthropology tends to re&ect, at any one time, the dominant intellectualphilosophy because, unlike in the physical sciences, it is in&uenced by'ualitative methods and so can more easily become in&uenced by ideology(for e!ample )u%nar *++ or Andreski *+-. This article begins bye!amining what is commonly termed /physical anthropology.0 This is thescience#oriented form of anthropology which came to prominence in thenineteenth century. As part of this section, the article also e!amines earlypositivist social anthropology, the historical relationship betweenanthropology and eugenics, and the philosophy underpinning this.

The ne!t section e!amines naturalistic anthropology. /1aturalism,0 in thisusage, is drawn from the biological /naturalists0 who collected specimens innature and described them in depth, in contrast to /e!perimentalists.0Anthropological /naturalists0 thus conduct eldwork with groups of peoplerather than engage in more e!perimental methods. The naturalism sectionlooks at the philosophy underpinning the development of ethnography#focused anthropology, including cultural determinism, cultural relativism,eldwork ethics and the many criticisms which this kind of anthropology has


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provoked. 2i3erences in its development in $estern and 4astern 4urope alsoare analy%ed. As part of this, the article discusses the most in&uentialschools within naturalistic anthropology and their philosophical foundations.

The article then e!amines Post#odern or /5ontemporary0 anthropology. This

school grew out of the /5risis of 6epresentation0 in anthropology beginning inthe *+7s. The article looks at how the Post#odern criti'ue has beenapplied to anthropology, and it e!amines the philosophical assumptionsbehind developments such as auto#ethnography. 8inally, it e!amines theview that there is a growing philosophical split within the discipline.

1. Positivist Anthropology

a. Physical Anthropology

Anthropology itself began to develop as a separate discipline in the mid#nineteenth century, as 5harles 2arwin0s (*97+#*99: Theory of 4volution by1atural Selection (2arwin *9;+ became widely accepted among scientists.4arly anthropologists attempted to apply evolutionary theory within thehuman species, focusing on physical di3erences between di3erent humansub#species or racial groups (see 4riksen :77* and the perceivedintellectual di3erences that followed.

The philosophical assumptions of these anthropologists were, to a greate!tent, the same assumptions which have been argued to underpin scienceitself. This is the positivism, rooted in 4mpiricism, which argued that

knowledge could only be reached through the empirical method andstatements were meaningful only if they could be empirically "ustied,though it should be noted that 2arwin should not necessarily be termed apositivist. Science needed to be solely empirical, systematic and e!ploratory,logical, theoretical (and thus focused on answering 'uestions. It needed toattempt to make predictions which are open to testing and falsication and itneeded to be epistemologically optimistic (assuming that the world can beunderstood. 4'ually, positivism argues that truth#statements are value#neutral, something disputed by the postmodern school. Philosophers ofScience, such as )arl Popper (*+7:#*++- (for e!ample Popper *+erbert Spencer (*9:7#*+7= (for e!ample Spencer *9=.1evertheless, the philosophy of early physical anthropologists included abelief in empiricism, the fundamentals of logic and epistemological optimism.This philosophy has been critici%ed by anthropologists such as 6is"ord (:77who has argued that it is not self#aware ? because values, he claims, are


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always involved in science ? and non#neutral scholarship can be useful inscience because it forces scientists to better contemplate their ideas.

b. Race and Eugenics in Nineteenth Century Anthropology

2uring the mid#nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, anthropologistsbegan to systematically e!amine the issue of racial di3erences, somethingwhich became even more researched after the acceptance of evolutionarytheory (see 2arwin *9*. That said, it should be noted that 2arwin himselfdid not specically advocate eugenics or theories of progress. >owever, evenprior to 2arwin0s presentation of evolution (2arwin *9;+, scholars werealready attempting to understand /races0 and the evolution of societies from/primitive0 to comple! (for e!ample Tylor *9


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anthropologists such as eddoe, that there is a racial hierarchy, with thewhite race as superior to others, involves importing the old /Breat 5hain ofeing0 (see Gove"oy *+=


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long as his or her research is scientic, that race should not be acontroversial category from a philosophical perspective and that it is for thegood of science itself that the more scientically#minded are encouraged tobreed (for e!ample 5attell *+:. As noted, some scholars stress the utility ofideologically#based scholarship.

A further criticism of eugenics is that it fails to recogni%e the supposedinherent worth of all individual humans (for e!ample Pichot :77+. Advocatesof eugenics, such as Brant (*+*


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life0 or descriptions of /tribal life0 by $esterni%ed tribal members ? andcompared them to accounts of more advanced cultures in order to answerdiscrete 'uestions. sing this method of accruing sources, now termed/armchair anthropology0 by its critics, the early evolutionists attempted toanswered discrete 'uestions about the origins and evolution of societal

institutions. As early sociologist 4mile 2urkheim (*9;9#*+* (2urkheim*+


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of such a nation0s lifestyle was to be found amongst its peasants.Accordingly, 4astern 4uropean anthropology elevated peasant life as themost natural form of life, a form of life that should, on some level, be strivedtowards in developing the new /nation0 (see Bellner *++;.

4astern 4uropean anthropologists, many of them motivated by 6omanticnationalism, focused on studying their own nations0 peasant culture andfolklore in order to preserve it and because the nation was regarded asuni'ue and studying its most authentic manifestation was therefore seen asa good in itself. As such, 4astern 4uropean anthropologists engaged ineldwork amongst the peasants, observing and documenting their lives.There is a degree to which the kind of anthropology ? or /ethnology0 ?remains more popular in 4astern than in $estern 4urope (see, for e!ample,5iubrinskas :77 or Sarkany12 at the time of writing.

Siikala (:77


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studying, they cannot see it ob"ectively and penetrate to its ontologicalpresuppositions (for e!ample )apferer :77*.

b. The Ethnographic School

The 4thnographic school, which has since come to characteri%e social andcultural anthropology, was developed by Polish anthropologist ronislawalinowski (*99-#*+-: (for e!ample alinowski *+::. Lriginally trained inPoland, alinowski0s anthropological philosophy brought together keyaspects of the 4astern and $estern schools. >e argued that, as with the$estern 4uropean school, anthropologists should study foreign societies.This avoided home blindness and allowed them to better perceive thesesocieties ob"ectively. >owever, as with the 4astern 4uropean School, heargued that anthropologists should observe these societies in person,something termed /participant observation0 or /ethnography.0 This method,he argued, solved many of the problems inherent in armchair anthropology.

It is this method which anthropologists generally summari%e as /naturalism0in contrast to the /positivism,0 usually followed alongside a 'uantitativemethod, of evolutionary anthropologists. 1aturalist anthropologists arguethat their method is /scientic0 in the sense that it is based on empiricalobservation but they argue that some kinds of information cannot beobtained in laboratory conditions or through 'uestionnaires, both of whichlend themselves to 'uantitative, strictly scientic analysis. >uman culturally#in&uenced actions di3er from the sub"ects of physical science because theyinvolve meaning within a system and meaning can only be discerned afterlong#term immersion in the culture in 'uestion. 1aturalists therefore arguethat a useful way to nd out information about and understand a people ?such as a tribe ? is to live with them, observe their lives, gain their trust andeventually live, and even think, as they do. This latter aim, specicallyhighlighted by alinowski, has been termed the empathetic perspective andis considered, by many naturalist anthropologists, to be a crucial sign ofresearch that is anthropological. In addition to these ideas, the naturalistperspective draws upon aspects of the 6omantic ovement in that itstresses, and elevates, the importance of /gaining empathy0 and respectingthe group it is studying, some naturalists argue that there are /ways ofknowing0 other than science (for e!ample 6ees :7*7 and that respect for

the group can be more important than gaining new knowledge. They alsoargue that human societies are so comple! that they cannot simply bereduced to biological e!planations.

In many ways, the successor to alinowski as the most in&uential culturalanthropologist was the American 5li3ord Beert% (*+:


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successful anthropologist reaches a point where he sees things from theperspective of the native. The anthropologist should bring alive the nativepoint of view, which 6oth (*+9+ notes /privileges0 the native, thuschallenging a hierarchical relationship between the observed and theobserver. >e thus strongly re"ected a distinction which alinowski is merely

critical ofD the distinction between a /primitive0 and /civili%ed0 culture. Inmany respects, this distinction was also criticised by the Structuralists ?whose central gure, 5laude Gevi#Strauss (*+79#:77+, was an earliergeneration than Beert% ? as they argued that all human minds involvedsimilar binary structures (see below.

>owever, there was a degree to which both alinowski and Beert% did notdivorce /culture0 from /biology.0 alinowski (*+:: argued thatanthropological interpretations should ultimately be reducible to humaninstincts while Beert% (*+=, -


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comple! to be reduced to biology or that culture is not closely re&ective ofbiology ($ilson *++9, 5h. *. In this regard, idney (*+;=,


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are alien %oologists. 4'ually, it has been asked why primary ethicalresponsibility should be to those studied. $hy should it not be to the publicor the funding bodyH (see Sluka :77 In this regard, it might be suggestedthat the code re&ects the lauding of members of (often non#$estern cultureswhich might ultimately be traced back to the 6omantic ovement. Their

rights are more important than those of the funders, the public or of otheranthropologists.

4'ually, the code has been critici%ed in terms of power dynamics, with criticsarguing that the anthropologist is usually in a dominant position over thosebeing studied which renders 'uestionable the whole idea of /informedconsent0 (ourgois :77. Indeed, it has been argued that the most recentAmerican Anthropological Association 5ode of 4thics (*++9 is a movementto the right, in political terms, because it accepts, e!plicitly, thatresponsibility should also be to the public and to funding bodies and is lesscensorious than previous codes with regard to covert research (Pels *+++.

This seems to be a movement towards a situation where a commitment tothe group being studied is less important than the pursuit of truth, thoughthe commitment to the sub"ect of study is still clear.

Gikewise, the most recent set of ethical guidelines from the Association ofAnthropologists of the ) and the 5ommonwealth implicitly accepts thatthere is a di3erence of opinion among anthropologists regarding whom theyare obliged to. It asserts, /ost anthropologists would maintain that theirparamount obligation is to their research participants . . .0 This documentspecically warrants against giving sub"ects /self#knowledge which they didnot seek or want.0 This may be seen to re&ect a belief in a form of cultural

relativism. Permitting people to preserve their way of thinking is moreimportant than their knowing what a scientist would regard as the truth.Their way of thinking ? a part of their culture ? should be respected, becauseit is theirs, even if it is inaccurate. This could conceivably preventanthropologists from publishing dissections of particular cultures if theymight be read by members of that culture (see 2utton :77+, 5h. :. Thus,philosophically, the debate in eldwork ethics ranges from a form ofconse'uentialism to, in the form of humanism, a deontological form of ethics.>owever, it should be emphasi%ed that the standard eldwork ethics notedare very widely accepted amongst anthropologists, particularly with regardto informed consent. Thus, the idea of e!perimenting on unwilling or

unknowing humans is strongly re"ected, which might be interpreted to implysome belief in human separateness.

$. Anthropology since %orld %ar &

a. Cultural 'eter(inis( and Cultural Relativis(


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As already discussed, $estern 4uropean anthropology, around the time of$orld $ar I, was in&uenced by eugenics and biological determinism. ut asearly as the *997s, this was beginning to be 'uestioned by Berman#American anthropologist 8ran% oas (*9;9#*+-: (for e!ample oas *+7,based at 5olumbia niversity in 1ew Mork. >e was critical of biological

determinism and argued for the importance of environmental in&uence onindividual personality and thus modal national personality in a way ofthinking called /historical particularism.0

oas emphasi%ed the importance of environment and history in shapingdi3erent cultures, arguing that all humans were biologically relatively similarand re"ecting distinctions of /primitive0 and civili%ed.0 oas also presentedcriti'ues of the work of early evolutionists, such as Tylor, demonstrating thatnot all societies passed through the phases he suggested or did not do so inthe order he suggested. oas used these ndings to stress the importance ofunderstanding societies individually in terms of their history and culture (for

e!ample 8reeman *+9=.

oas sent his student argaret ead (*+7*#*+9 to American Samoa tostudy the people there with the aim of proving that they were a /negativeinstance0 in terms of violence and teenage angst. If this could be proven, itwould undermine biological determinism and demonstrate that people werein fact culturally determined and that biology had very little in&uence onpersonality, something argued by @ohn Gocke (*owever, it should be notedthat /cultural relativism0 is sometimes used to refer to the way in which theparts of a whole form a kind of separate organism, though this is usually


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referred to as /8unctionalism.0 In addition, >arris (see >eadland, Pike, and>arris *++7 distinguishes between /emic0 (insider and /etic0 (outsiderunderstanding of a social group, arguing that both perspectives seem tomake sense from the di3erent viewpoints. This might also be understood ascultural relativism and perhaps raises the 'uestion of whether the two worlds

can so easily be separated. 5ultural relativism also argues, as with 6omantic1ationalism, that so#called developed cultures can learn a great deal fromthat which they might regard as /primitive0 cultures. oreover, humans areregarded as, in essence, products of culture and as e!tremely similar interms of biology.

5ultural 6elativism led to so#called /cultural anthropologists0 focusing on thesymbols within a culture rather than comparing the di3erent structures andfunctions of di3erent social groups, as occurred in /social anthropology0 (seebelow. As comparison was frowned upon, as each culture was regarded asuni'ue, anthropology in the tradition of ead tended to focus on descriptions

of a group0s way of life. Thick description is a trait of ethnography morebroadly but it is especially salient amongst anthropologists who believe thatcultures can only be understood in their own terms. Such a philosophy hasbeen critici%ed for turning anthropology into little more than academic#sounding travel writing because it renders it highly personal and lacking incomparative analysis (see Sandall :77*, 5h. *.

5ultural relativism has also been critici%ed as philosophically impractical and,ultimately, epistemologically pessimistic (Scruton :777, because it meansthat nothing can be compared to anything else or even assessed through themedium of a foreign language0s categories. In implicitly defending cultural

relativism, anthropologists have cautioned against assuming that somecultures are more /rational0 than others. >ollis (*+


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5ultural determinism has been critici%ed both from within and from outsideanthropology. 8rom within anthropology, 1ew Nealand anthropologist 2erek8reeman (*+*


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whole. Perceiving societies as organisms has been traced back to >erbertSpencer. Indeed, there is a degree to which 2urkheim (*+owever, a leading member of the structural functionalist school was

Scottish anthropologist Jictor Turner (*+:7#*+9=. Structural functionalistsattempted to understand society as a structure with inter#related parts. Inattempting to understand 6ites of Passage, Turner argued that everydaystructured society could be contrasted with the 6ite of Passage (Turner*+


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such as that of ritain. 8or e!ample, Turner was highly in&uential in pursuingthe Anthropology of 6eligion in which he used tribal categories as a means ofcomprehending aspects of the 5atholic 5hurch, such as modern#daypilgrimage (Turner and Turner *+9. This research also involved using theparticipant observation method. 5ritics, such as 6omanian anthropologist

ircea 4liade (*+7#*+9egelian idealism. ost associated with 5laude Gevi#Strauss,structuralism argued that all cultures follow the >egelian dialectic. Thehuman mind has a universal structure and a kind of a $rioricategory systemof opposites, a point which >ollis argues can be used as a starting point forany comparative cultural analysis. 5ultures can be broken up intocomponents ? such as /ythology0 or /6itual0 ? which evolve according to thedialectical process, leading to cultural di3erences. As such, the deep

structures, or grammar, of each culture can be traced back to a sharedstarting point (and in a sense, the shared human mind "ust as one can witha language. ut each culture has a grammar and this allows them to becompared and permits insights to be made about them (see, for e!ample,Gevi#Strauss *+9. It might be suggested that the same criticisms that havebeen leveled against the >egelian dialectic might be leveled againststructuralism, such as it being based around a dogma. It has also beenargued that category systems vary considerably between cultures (see2iamond *+-. 4ven supporters of Gevi#Strauss have conceded that hisworks are opa'ue and verbose (for e!ample Geach *+-.

c. Post)*odern or Conte(porary Anthropology

The /postmodern0 thinking of scholars such as @ac'ues 2errida (*+=7#:77-and ichel 8oucault (*+:


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ongoing, every aspect of /traditional empirical anthropology0 came to be'uestioned.

>ymes (*+- critici%ed anthropologists for imposing /$estern categories0 ?such as $estern measurement ? on those they study, arguing that this is a

form of domination and was immoral, insisting that truth statements werealways sub"ective and carried cultural values. Talal Asad (*+* critici%edeld#work based anthropology for ultimately being indebted to colonialismand suggested that anthropology has essentially been a pro"ect to enforcecolonialism. Beert%ian anthropology was critici%ed because it involvedrepresenting a culture, something which inherently involved imposing$estern categories upon it through producing te!ts. arcus argued thatanthropology was ultimately composed of /te!ts0 ? ethnographies ? whichcan be deconstructed to reveal power dynamics, normally the dominant#culture anthropologist making sense of the oppressed ob"ect of studythrough means of his or her sub"ective cultural categories and presenting it

to his or her culture (for e!ample arcus and 5ushman *+9:. y e!tension,as all te!ts ? including scientic te!ts ? could be deconstructed, they argued,that they can make no ob"ective assertions. 6oth (*+9+ specically critici%esseeing anthropology as /te!ts0 arguing that it does not undermine theempirical validity of the observations involved or help to nd the powerstructures.

Jarious anthropologists, such as 6oy $agner (b. *+=9 ($agner *+9*,argued that anthropologists were simply products of $estern culture andthey could only ever hope to understand another culture through their own.There was no ob"ective truth beyond culture, simply di3erent cultures with

some, scientic ones, happening to be dominant for various historicalreasons. Thus, this school strongly advocated cultural relativism. 5ritics havecountered that, after alinowski, anthropologists, with their participantobservation breaking down the color bar, were in fact an irritation to colonialauthorities (for e!ample )uper *+= and have critici%ed cultural relativism,as discussed.

This situation led to what has been called the /re&e!ive turn0 in culturalanthropology. As $estern anthropologists were products of their culture, "ustas those whom they studied were, and as the anthropologist was himselffallible, there developed an increasing movement towards /auto#

ethnography0 in which the anthropologist analy%ed their own emotions andfeelings towards their eldwork. The essential argument for anthropologistsengaging in detailed analysis of their own emotions, sometimes known asthe re&e!ive turn, is anthropologist 5harlotte 2avies0 (*+++,


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that there is no such thing as ob"ective reality and ob"ective truthC there aresimply di3erent constructions of reality, as $agner (*+9* also argues. It hasalso been argued that autoethnography is /emancipatory0 because it turnsanthropology into a dialogue rather than a traditional hierarchical analysis(>eaton#Shreshta :7*7, -+. Auto#ethnography has been critici%ed as self#

indulgent and based on problematic assumptions such as cultural relativismand the belief that morality is the most important dimension to scholarship(for e!ample Bellner *++:. In addition, the same criticisms that have beenleveled against postmodernism more broadly have been leveled againstpostmodern anthropology, including criticism of a sometimes verbose andemotive style and the belief that it is epistemologically pessimistic andtherefore leads to a Joid (for e!ample Scruton :777. >owever, cautiousdefenders insist on the importance of being at least /psychologically aware0(for e!ample 4mmett *+


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be correct and even work on the assumption that it is and engage in analysisaccordingly (a point discussed in 4ngelke :77:.

2uring the same period, schools within anthropology developed basedaround a number of other fashionable philosophical ideologies. 8eminist

anthropology, like postmodern anthropology, began to come to prominencein the early *+7s. Philosophers such as Sandra >arding (*++* argued thatanthropology had been dominated by men and this had led toanthropological interpretations being androcentric and a failure to appreciatethe importance of women in social organi%ations. It has also led toandrocentric metaphors in anthropological writing and focusing on research'uestions that mainly concern men. Strathern (*+99 uses what she calls aar!ist#8eminist approach. She employs the categories of elanesia in orderto understand elanesian gender relations to produce an /endogenous0analysis of the situation. In doing so, she argues that actions in elanesiaare gender#neutral and the asymmetry between males and females is

/action#specic.0 Thus, elanesian women are not in any permanent state ofsocial inferiority to men. In other words, if there is a se!ual hierarchy it is defacto rather than de "ure.

5ritics have countered that prominent feminist interpretations have simplyturned out to be empirically inaccurate. 8or e!ample, feministanthropologists, such as $einer (*++: as well as philosopher Susan2ahlberg (*+9*, argued that foraging societies pri%ed females and werepeaceful and se!ually egalitarian. It has been countered that this is apro"ection of feminist ideals which does not match with the facts ()u%nar*++, 5h. =. It has been argued that it does not follow that "ust because

anthropology is male#dominated it is thus biased ()u%nar *++, 5h. =.>owever, feminist anthropologist Alison $ylie (see 6is"ord *++ has arguedthat /politically motivated criti'ues0 including feminist ones, can improvescience. 8eminist criti'ue, she argues, demonstrates the in&uence of/androcentric values0 on theory which forces scientists to hone their theories.

Another school, composed of some anthropologists from less developedcountries or their descendants, have pro3ered a similar criti'ue, shifting thefeminist view that anthropology is androcentric by arguing that it is 4uro#centric. It has been argued that anthropology is dominated by 4uropeans,and specically $estern 4uropeans and those of $estern 4uropean descent,

and therefore re&ects 4uropean thinking and bias. 8or e!ample,anthropologists from developing countries, such as Breenlandic )arla @essen#$illiamson, have argued that anthropology would benet from the moreholistic, intuitive thinking of non#$estern cultures and that this should beintegrated into anthropology (for e!ample @essen#$illiamson :77


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Afrocentric anthropology aims to shift this to an African (or African Americanperspective. >e argues that metaphors in anthropology, for e!ample, are4uro#centric and "ustify the suppression of Africans. Thus, Afrocentricanthropologists wish to construct an /epistemology0 the foundations of whichare African. The criticisms leveled against cultural relativism have been

leveled with regard to such perspectives (see Gevin :77;.

+. Philosophical 'ividing ,ines

a. Conte(porary Evolutionary Anthropology

The positivist, empirical philosophy already discussed broadly underpinscurrent evolutionary anthropology and there is an e!tent to which it,therefore, crosses over with biology. This is inline with the Consilience model,advocated by >arvard biologist 4dward $ilson (b. *+:+ ($ilson *++9, who

has argued that the social sciences must attempt to be scientic, in order toshare in the success of science, and, therefore, must be reducible to thescience which underpins them. 5ontemporary evolutionary anthropologists,therefore, follow the scientic method, and often a 'uantitativemethodology, to answer discrete 'uestions and attempt to orientanthropological research within biology and the latest discoveries in thiseld. Also some scholars, such as 2erek 8reeman (*+9=, have defended amore 'ualitative methodology but, nevertheless, argued that their ndingsneed to be ultimately underpinned by scientic research.

8or e!ample, anthropologist Pascal oyer (:77* has attempted to

understand the origins of /religion0 by drawing upon the latest research ingenetics and in particular research into the functioning of the human mind.>e has e!amined this alongside evidence from participant observation in anattempt to /e!plain0 religion. This subsection of evolutionary anthropologyhas been termed /1euro#anthropology0 and attempts to better understand/culture0 through the latest discoveries in brain science. There are manyother schools which apply di3erent aspects of evolutionary theory ? such asbehavioral ecology, evolutionary genetics, paleontology and evolutionarypsychology ? to understanding cultural di3erences and di3erent aspects ofculture or subsections of culture such as /religion.0 Some scholars, such as6ichard 2awkins (b. *+-* (2awkins *+


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that evolutionary anthropologists fail to appreciate that there are ways ofknowing other than science. Some critics have also argued that evolutionaryanthropology, with its acceptance of personality di3erences based ongenetics, may lead to the maintenance of class and race hierarchies and toracism and discrimination (see Segerstrle :777.

b. Anthropology- A Philosophical Split

It has been argued both by scholars and "ournalists that anthropology, moreso than other social scientic disciplines, is rent by a fundamentalphilosophical divide, though some anthropologists have disputed this andsuggested that 'ualitative research can help to answer scientic research'uestions as long as naturalistic anthropologists accept the signicance ofbiology.

The divide is trenchantly summari%ed by Gawson and c5auley (*++= whodivide between /interpretivists0 and /scientists,0 or, as noted above,/positivists0 and /naturalists.0 8or the scientists, the views of the /culturalanthropologists0 (as they call themselves are too speculative, especiallybecause pure ethnographic research is sub"ective, and are meaninglesswhere they cannot be reduced to science. 8or the interpretivists, the/evolutionary anthropologists0 are too /reductionistic0 and /mechanistic,0 theydo not appreciate the benets of sub"ective approach (such as garneringinformation that could not otherwise be garnered, and they ignore 'uestionsof /meaning,0 as they su3er from /physics envy.0

Some anthropologists, such as 6is"ord (:777, 9, have critici%ed this dividearguing that two perspectives can be united and that only through/e!planatory coherence0 (combining ob"ective analysis of a group with theface#value beliefs of the group members can a fully coherent e!planation bereached. Ltherwise, anthropology will /never reach the social reality at whichit aims.0 ut this seems to raise the 'uestion of what it means to /reach thesocial reality.0

In terms of physical action, the split has already been happening, asdiscussed in Segal and Managisako (:77;, 5h. *. They note that someAmerican anthropological departments demand that their lecturers arecommitted to holist /four eld anthropology0 (archaeology, cultural, biologicaland linguistic precisely because of this ongoing split and in particular thedivergence between biological and cultural anthropology. They observe thatalready by the end of the *+97s most biological anthropologists had left theAmerican Anthropological Association. Though they argue that /holism0 wasless necessary in 4urope ? because of the way that S anthropology, in


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focusing on 1ative Americans, /bundled0 the four ? 8earn (:779 notes thatthere is a growing divide in ritish anthropology departments as well alongthe same dividing lines of positivism and naturalism.

4volutionary anthropologists and, in particular, postmodern anthropologists

do seem to follow philosophies with essentially di3erent presuppositions. In1ovember :7*7, this divide became particularly contentious when theAmerican Anthropological Association voted to remove the word /science0from its ission Statement (errett :7*7.

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The Philosophy of Anthropology