Some thoughts on Anthropology as a “Science”
Posted By Marc on November 27, 2009
Max Forte has just produced another posting on the historical relation of Anthropology and Science entitled The Social Production of Science and Anthropology as Knowledge for Domination. Don’t let the title put you off, it is well worth reading and, having studied the period under question myself, I can also say that it is, in my opinion, quite accurate within its limits. Despite this accuracy, there is an interesting problem which has dogged the history of the discipline itself: what do we actually mean by the term “Science”?
I want to make my comments in particular response to one part of Max’s post
One of the recurring features of some comments, on this and other blogs, surrounding anthropologists’ criticisms of the Human Terrain System, has been that we critics are not being “scientific” and “objective,” but rather “ideological” and “biased.” As I have held throughout, the dichotomy is an extremely crude and simplistic one. Now we will see how we can take that further: the dichotomy itself is pure artifice, the by product of low grade propaganda that has been popularly consumed in North America, based on views of science that very few even in the natural sciences would any longer dare to defend. The idea that anthropology should be “scientific” and “objective” is also derivative of the Eurocentric foundations of anthropology, as was discussed in previous posts in this series.
Max is, of course, quite correct that the dichotomy of “scientific” and objective” vs “ideological” and “biased” is both quite crude and “pure artifice”. I would actually go further than Max; it is not “the by product of low grade propaganda” but, again in my opinion, the product of a long term replacement of one dominant ideology (“religion”) with another (“science”). Both of these ideologies serve similar functions at the social level: a reflection of their societies lived ontologies (a la Durkheim’s Elementary Forms), as reflective forms of social “magic” (i.e. prescriptive actions in order to achieve predictable results, cf. Malinowski Magic, Science and Religion), as well as providing a set apart “caste” of people who act as intermediaries (see, for example, Auguste Comte on the role of Sociologists as the new “priesthood” [in the Positive Philosophy] and Andreski’s Social Science as Sorcery).
The problem with this “replacement” is that, to paraphrase Milton, by making a religion of science, science itself, in its older sense as a via negativa discipline of inquiry, was betrayed. This betrayal shows up primarily in the semantic shift of one simple word: “objectivity”.
Objectivity (?)
In the method of science proposed and advocated by Francis Bacon, inductive logic was the rule. As part of any investigation of the material world, one was to “free” oneself from various “idols” or “illusions” (idola [Latin]; beliefs, biases, etc.) as much as possible. This is the older sense of “objectivity” in “science” – an almost Buddhist stripping away of the illusions governing our investigations of the world. Bacon does not argue that one will achieve a perfect, objective knowledge of the world; indeed, his position is extremely “protestant” in this.
But this style and meaning of “objectivity” does not meet the social needs of an ideology that must take on the attributes of religion. The core need of an ideology in such a position is to be the purveyor of “Truth”; something that Baconian objectivity refuses to provide. As such, it became necessary to do away with the older, Baconian sense of “objectivity”, and replace it with a different meaning which, functionally, is closer to “ritual purity”.
Some concluding thoughts
It is this second sense of “objectivity” that has become the standard meaning associated with the term, and the one that dominates the many of the current debates surrounding the Human Terrain System, to which Max refers, and his subsequent deconstruction of the social (i.e. inherently biased) nature of scientific “objectivity” is spot on. Indeed, anyone who uses the older, Baconian sense of “objectivity” would of course agree with that critique: after all, Bacon made the same critique some 400 years ago.
I would suggest, however, that there is within the discipline of Anthropology, a strand of Baconian thought and understanding. I will not try to outline it at present, but I believe we can see some of it in the initial stance of Boas in his opposition to the Unilinear Evolutionists as well as in the works of Malinowski. Furthermore, I would argue that such a stance is a necessary corrective to much of the application of Anthropology in, amongst other things, the Human Terrain System.
Marc on 
Pascale Siegel on 
JWC on 
Daniel Gallant on 
MM on
This is amazing to behold, eurocentric academia decolonizing itself. Finally in human terms the arrogances of what was “primitive” are extremely successful patterns for human beings for the past 100,000 years. Objective scientists stripped of most so called tribalism and symbolic thinking, looking for water on Mars or on the Moon, and then we have Khoisan and San Bushmen who can live without groundwater, collecting water from tubers and the such. Now Pharmaceutical companies are making a bee line for Southern Africa because the populations in the bush contain 90% genetic diversity (a wider test base for humanity) whereas in the Netherlands supposedly only 30% genetic diversity. Not all Buddhists strip the outer down, but do understand the Protestant idol and image busting type mindset. http://www.alphabetvsgoddess.com Dr. Leonard Shlain, very cool dude (RIP). Hey does the Human Terrain System account for neuroscientific basis (left hem, right hem culture etc?)? Gotta catch a bus.
Hi Bill,
On the HTS question, ahm, “maybe” is probably the only accurate answer.
Hi Marc!
Sorry that I missed this until now…I have stopped checking my feed reader just because of the hectic schedule, and your blog did not post a pingback. If someone had not clicked the links to my stuff, I might have missed this completely.
I hope you get time to write more about this Baconian strand in anthropology, I find this line very interesting.
I have been working more with Wallerstein, and before him C.P. Snow, on the rupture between science and philosophy, or science and the humanities, more than science versus religion. You could take the latter angle, as you do, but then I wonder: do we have a succession of one taking over from the other, or, the co-presence of two separate, antagonistic “cultures”?
It’s also useful that you bring the multiple possible meanings and understandings of objectivity. Certainly something more for me to think about.
I am just grateful you did not tell me to bow down and kiss Boas’ feet.
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Hi Max,
Believe me, I understand “hectic”! You would not want to be living my life right now….
The science – religion interaction, especially in the Baconian side, is really quite interesting; at least to me
. Partly, that’s because they are not antagonist, and don’t become so until we start getting heavily into the Darwin debates and, especially, the interactions of Spencer, Galton, et alii. Outside of the meaning shift in “objectivity”, there are several others which, to my mind, are important.
First, there is a shift in emphasis on the motivation for pursuing “science” from science as a pursuit of “wonder” to a pursuit of “utility”. In theological terms, this would be along the line of “God gave us brains and expects us to use them”, coupled with a strong belief that if you have the knowledge (and talent) you should use it in service of your fellow humans. The shift to a utilitarian pursuit, however, tended to decrease the scope of both application and inquiry and, latter on, to devalue the utility.
A second, related shift, comes in the form of what is the source of “inspiration” for practicing scientific disciplines. One of the most intriguing things for me is that many of the 16th and 17th century scientists were also mystics and/or “magicians” (usually in the Hermetic or Alchemical systems), and we can see the secular remnants of this in Boas’ writings. This provided both an external and internal focus for the ethics of inquiry (and usage) that, with the increasing shift towards utility, started to degrade. As the degradation of this focus increases, we increasingly find the quality and ethicality of the works degrading as well, occasionally to the point where they become merely self-referential, self-serving pieces of tripe.
At the same time, the concept of ethics changes from that grounded in the individual at both transcendent and immanent levels to one that is grounded solely in a small, self-referential group. Now, grounding “ethics” in such a small group isn’t necessarily problematic IF there are also those transcendent / immanent links but, when they disappear, you end up with an “ethical system” grounded solely in the “me first” attitude. Not surprising, but dangerous.
And I would never tell you to bow down and kiss Boas’ feet
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That was delicious, Marc! Many people hide behind terms like “scientific” or “objective” – some people seem to argue that their arguments have merit simply because they are scientific. An underlying assumption seems to be that good science can only support one conclusion. If there are two competing conclusions, one of them has to be wrong.
It is common to lay claim authority because one has been scientific, as you say. The scientific method can become a set of prescriptive actions in order to achieve predictable results: basically, magic.
You conjure images that might be offensive to a scientific person: a royal priesthood of scientists, ritually pure and qualified by their position and esoteric knowledge to make pronouncements and evaluations. You hit the mark, Marc! You aren’t describing anybody you know, are you?
Hi Jim,
LOL – you guessed it
. What really gets me about the entire “scientific priesthood” thing is that some people are both arrogant and ignorant. The claims of “objectivity” (in the modern sense) allow them to ascribe a sacrality to their otherwise biased (and BS) positions. They have forgotten that the scientific method a la Bacon was a via negativa.
On the flip side, I really have no problems with people who a) know what they are doing, b) know their biases, and c) make no bones about it. I also have no problems with people operating in disciplines where “magic”, in the sense of prescriptive action generating constant (say 99.99%+) results, works. I do have some serious problems with people who have a lousy predictive validity but hide behind the ‘scientific” mantle.
Oh, for natural philosophy to once again ring through the ears of those who think!
[...] In Harmonium » Some thoughts on Anthropology as a “Science” there is an interesting problem which has dogged the history of the discipline itself: what do we actually mean by the term “Science”? [...]