In discussions with friends, Im always asked: "So what is actually anthropology?". Well one popular answer I sometimes give is: "Its about the other.", but recently a friend commented: Its about the "nature of human beings", thats at least what the definition in the german "Brockhaus" says. So whats the nature of human beings?
And are anthropologists really focusing on the question? Or they dont? A first answer one can give is: Evolutionists in the 19th century certainly gave answers to the riddle of human nature. But nowadays? Hmmm, where did anthropology go ?
In a speech of M.Bloch, I found some passages to continue the answer :
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/pdf/20050224-Bloch-Anthropology.pdf
However, in the fog of such imprecision diffusionism/ constructionism has meant that anthropology could not anymore,
have human nature as its subject because there was no such thing. Like history, social and cultural anthropology could then only be an assemblage of anecdotes about this and that. And this is, by and large, what it has become and what has produced the heterogeneous list of interests of the Berkeley Anthropology department.
The contemporary situation seems therefore to be one where evolutionism has been dismissed and diffusionism has won, thereby leaving anthropology without the only centre it could have: the study of human beings [Bloch 2005:7].
Bloch further argues:
The answer to the question “Where did anthropology go?” is therefore “to disciplines outside the social sciences where it is doing very well" [Bloch 2005:10].
He cites some popular authors outside of the social sciences, who are successfully selling their books by explaining human nature:
Thus, to mention only some of the most well known, we have Richard Dawkins, a zoologist, explaining kinship (1976), René Girard, a scholar of literature,expounding on the origin of religion (1972), Stephen Pinker, a psycholinguist,telling us about totemism (2002) and Matt Ridley, a scientific journalist, telling us about incest (2003)[Bloch 2005:10].
Dawkins,R. 1976 The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Girard, R. 1972 La Violence et le Sacré. Paris: Grasset
Pinker, S. 2002 The Blank Slate. London: Allen Lane
Ridley, M. 2003. Nature Via Culture. London: Fourth Estate.
And are anthropologists really focusing on the question? Or they dont? A first answer one can give is: Evolutionists in the 19th century certainly gave answers to the riddle of human nature. But nowadays? Hmmm, where did anthropology go ?
In a speech of M.Bloch, I found some passages to continue the answer :
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEPublicLecturesAndEvents/pdf/20050224-Bloch-Anthropology.pdf
However, in the fog of such imprecision diffusionism/ constructionism has meant that anthropology could not anymore,
have human nature as its subject because there was no such thing. Like history, social and cultural anthropology could then only be an assemblage of anecdotes about this and that. And this is, by and large, what it has become and what has produced the heterogeneous list of interests of the Berkeley Anthropology department.
The contemporary situation seems therefore to be one where evolutionism has been dismissed and diffusionism has won, thereby leaving anthropology without the only centre it could have: the study of human beings [Bloch 2005:7].
Bloch further argues:
The answer to the question “Where did anthropology go?” is therefore “to disciplines outside the social sciences where it is doing very well" [Bloch 2005:10].
He cites some popular authors outside of the social sciences, who are successfully selling their books by explaining human nature:
Thus, to mention only some of the most well known, we have Richard Dawkins, a zoologist, explaining kinship (1976), René Girard, a scholar of literature,expounding on the origin of religion (1972), Stephen Pinker, a psycholinguist,telling us about totemism (2002) and Matt Ridley, a scientific journalist, telling us about incest (2003)[Bloch 2005:10].
Dawkins,R. 1976 The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Girard, R. 1972 La Violence et le Sacré. Paris: Grasset
Pinker, S. 2002 The Blank Slate. London: Allen Lane
Ridley, M. 2003. Nature Via Culture. London: Fourth Estate.
age_man_eight - am So, 31. Juli 2005, 13:23 - Rubrik: Kognitive Anthropologie
