Boas and the Logic and Sociology of Scientific Inquiry
Boas must, first of all, be
understood as a fieldworker, according to George W. Stocking, Jr.
Departing from Tylor, and previous anthropological thought, and minimizing
the role of cultural evolutionary schemas, Boas’ revolutionized anthropology
by contributing to a modern understanding of culture(s) as shaped
by history, as plural, holistic, behaviorally determined and relativistic.
Inherent in this conception of culture are some ideas that imbricate
irregularly with the logic of scientific inquiry. This paper attempts
to articulate some of the ways hybrid anthropology, which draws approaches
from both scientific and historical inquiry, works. In particular
this paper examines some ways in which the field worker Boas’ revolutionary
conception of culture interplays with Stanley Tambiah’s conception
of scientific inquiry, sociology and logic. Tambiah asks where social
scientific inquiry logically fits in the schema of scientific inquiry
and society. This paper attempts to rework, refine and bring into
relief the seminal, anthropological Boasian culture concept with the
logic and sociology of scientific inquiry.
In “Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope
of Rationality,” Harvard anthropologist Stanley Tambiah examines the
logic and sociology of scientific inquiry. Tambiah identifies (see
figure below) the internal framework of scientific inquiry as a collection
of relations between, on the one hand, bodies of specialized knowledge
(rectangles) and, -- on the other, subdisciplines, specializations
with conventions and “rules of the game” (ovals) accepted by peer
groups and professional associations (see figure). I want to examine
the implications -- for Boasian anthropological understandings of
culture and fieldwork in terms of the relation between data and text
embodied in the bodymind of the fieldworker -- and for scientific
inquiry as outlined in Tambiah’s chart. By contextualizing each understanding
in the other, I want to examine how anthropology functions as a social
science -- its ‘scientific’ limitations and problems and why anthropologists
haven’t seemed to have been conducting scientific inquiries in the
last 50 years or so -- as well as the limitations of Tambiah’s theoretical
framework of the logic and sociology of scientific inquiry in terms
of Boas’ anthropological culture conception.
Contextualizing Boasian sociocultural anthropology within Tambiah’s
framework helps to highlight both strengths and weaknesses of sociocultural
anthropology as a mode of scientific inquiry. Since Boas’ culture
concept continues to be significant today, imbricating Boas and Tambiah
potentially points out new research directions for anthropology or
at least clarifies known approaches. In terms of Boas’ concept of
culture, I want to look at his methods and paradigms of anthropology
in terms of scientific inquiry (Tambiah’s internal framework).
As a ‘scientific’ field worker, Boas engaged in anthropological “data
– text” formulations based on a culture concept informed by behavioral
determinism. Studying Pacific Northwest Native American traits and
myths, Boas suggested that behavior is shaped by habit, and that tradition
is a shackle informing these habits. In this model, the Boasian anthropological
interaction between the rectangles and ovals (see figure) – i.e. the
methods of science, paradigms (field work), reality testing of “nature,”
verification of empirical reality, and technical applications of knowledge
– would typically refer to the ‘Boasian’ field worker him/herself
participating, observing, and taking notes filtered through a behaviorally
determined, tradition-binding conception of culture – which, for Boas,
binds less when understood. This culture conception is also plural,
holistic, historic and relativistic, and typically learned in an academic
environment. The Boasian field
worker would then transcribe his or her data into text typically from
an analytical standpoint such as an examination of myths, traits or
habits.
In terms of Tambiah’s figure (below), the point I want to make has
to do with the way the external context and internal framework of
science interplay in terms of Boas’ culture concept. Boas’ culture
concept seems to suggest that the habits, traits and words (as a body
of specialized data in the internal framework of scientific inquiry)
imbricate rather than adjoin the external context (plural,
historically constructed, relativistic habits or traits). The distinction
between internal and external is more ambiguous or contingent than
Tambiah depicts it to be. In addition, “the impact of “external history””
in Tambiah’s chart (bottom right) would articulate with the subjects’
‘habits’, as “bodies of specialized knowledge” (see chart, top center),
which the Boasian fieldworker observes in the field – in that ‘habits’
arise from particular histories - an ‘arrowed’ interaction which Tambiah
doesn’t identify in his figure.
In the context of the logic
and sociology of scientific inquiry, the challenge of historically
particular data that mean different things to different people seems
to obscure Tambiah’s project. In terms of the ‘scientific’ practice
of fieldwork informed by Boas’ culture concept (the arrowed lines
in the internal framework of science in Tambiah’s chart), what are
the rules of the game, etc. most useful in examining these data? What
does scientific inquiry do with production of subjectivity by (produced)
subjects, anthropologically observed? Tambiah’s figure helps to provide
a framework in which the anthropologist might reflexively contextualize
his/her own work in relation to other scientific approaches, but doesn’t
seem to help move the anthropological discourse beyond ‘subjectively’
described ethnographic description based on fieldwork. What happens
to ‘reality’ testing?
Tambiah’s work also plays a useful role in showing the significance
of Boas’ ‘revolutionary’ culture concept through its inability to
fit neatly in his table: it’s difficult to make culturally specific,
interactive human data discrete and derive general laws from it. What
makes anthropology so epistemologically interesting is the variety
of data in the field (however defined) – the flux of experience (behavior,
habit), language and behavior – which can seem only loosely in accord
with the scientific community at large in terms of method (i.e. an
informed written record) and Tambiah’s internal framework – and which
data are as much shaped by the external context. The significance
of Tambiah’s internal vs. external paradigm analytically privileges
a historically consistent and internally realistic approach to scientific
knowledge but doesn’t seem to provide new approaches for Boasian culture-concept-carrying
‘scientific’ field workers. In anthropology’s attempt to move toward
an internal, logically consistent sociology of scientific inquiry,
it finds itself, employing Boas’ culture concept, cycling through
and articulating with external, social contexts.
Figure 1
The
Logic and Sociology of Scientific Inquiry
(Tambiah, 1990, p. 141)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hatch,
Elvin. 1973. Theories of Man and Culture. New York: Columbia.
Stocking, Jr., George W. 1968.
“Franz Boas and the Culture Concept in Historical Perspective.” In
Race, Culture and Evolution. N.Y. Free Press.
Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja. 1990. Magic, Science,
Religion, and the Scope of Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.