The Foundations of Social Anthropology by S. F. NADEL Professor of Anthropology, Australian National University LONDON : COHEN & WEST LTD 1953CONTENTS cuaPTeR 5 The Dynamic Properties of Mental Events 6 Psychological Linkage 7 Energy in Explanation XII PsycHoLocicaL EXPLANATIONS: ACTION POTENTIALS 1 Instincts and Pseudo-Instincts 2 Generic Action Potentials (i) Pleasure—Displeasure (ii) Equilibrium—Tension (iii) Conformity—Shame 3 The Limits of Psychological Understanding 4 Drives and Rationality XIII Function anp PATTERN 1 The Function Concept Integration and Survival ‘The Totality of Culture Pattern Formations Configurations (i) Purpose—Ethos (ii) Purpose—Eidos (iii) Ethos—Eidos 6 Conclusions: Culture and Personality Upon BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX xi PAE 302 313 323 328 333 337 349 348 354 363 368 371 380 385 395 395 398 4O1 402 409 415Contents CHAPTER I PRoLEGOMENA: WHY ANTHROPOLOGY? II Ill Iv VI 1 The Approach to Primitive Society 2 Anthropology, Sociology, and History 3 The Bridge of Understanding Tue AIMS OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY 1 Facts and Theory 2 Anthropology divided 3 Premises of Observation OBSERVATION AND DESCRIPTION 1 The Use of Informants 2 The Use of Language 3 The Personal Equation PsyCHOLOGY IN OBSERVATION 1 The Problem 2 Behaviourism 3 The Alter Ego 4 Motives behind Behaviour 5 Nomenclature THE MATERIAL OF OBSERVATION 1 ‘The Nexus of Behaviour Social Dimensions Action Autonomous Grouping Autonomous The Individual Pointer Relations 7 Note on Change and Evolution AUR INSTITUTIONS 1 Problems of Definition 2 Standardization 3 Institution and Group ix PAGE 107 peoa 118x CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 4 Aim Contents 123 5 On Classification 129 6 Interaction of Institutions 136 7 Residual Categories 142 VII Groupincs 1 Definitions 145 2 Recruitment 151 3 Groups and Institutions 156 4 Cohesion and Endurance 165 5 Internal Order 169 6 External Order 176 7 Society as a Whole 183 8 Residual Categories 188 VIII Explanation 1 Anthropology and Natural Science 191 2 Explanation and Common Sense 194 3 Explanation and Analysis 199 4 Causality 207 5 The Hierarchy of Sciences 209 6 Conclusions 219 IX EXPERIMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY 1 The Comparative Method 222 2 Technique 229 3 The Limitations of the Method 237 4 The Nature of Sociological Laws 246 X ExpeRIMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY (continued) 1 The Categories of Social Understanding 256 2 Logical Consistency 258 3 Purpose 265 4 Causality 276 5 Rules of Application 279 XI PsycHoLocicaL EXPLANATIONS: MENTAL ENERGY 1 Preliminaries 289 2 Social Psychology 290 3 Object and Function Language 294 4 Mental Energy 298CHAPTER IX Experimental Anthropology 1. THE ComparaTiIvE MetTHop But the same limitation is shared by certain branches of natural science, such as astronomy or geology. Here as in the human sciences the artificial induction of variations in phenomena is replaced by the observation of variable phenomena. We study variations, found and looked for in the data of observation, and correlate them so that from them general regularities may emerge. This equivalent of the experiment in the study of society is usually called, somewhat loosely, the comparative method.! For comparison as such is only the handling of material which might yield relevant knowledge. Comparison needs further refinement— planned selection and rigorous checks or controls—to approach the accuracy of a quasi-experimental method. This refinement is offered in the study of ‘concomitant variations’, formulated by J. S. Mill as one of the methods of inductive enquiry,? and elevated by Durkheim to a paramount principle in sociological research.? It means, in essence, the analysis of social situations which are at first sight already comparable, that is, which appear to share certain features (modes of action, relationships) while differing in others, or to share their common features with some degree of difference. This first-sight impression will be rendered more precise by demonstrating the extent to which uniformities or differences in any one feature are accompanied by, or ‘correlated’ with, uniformities or differences in others. Hence we are able, finally, to isolate the invariant relations between facts upon which all scientific explana- tions must rest. The concomitant variations (or co-variations for I is true enough that ‘Social Anthropology cannot experiment’. 1‘The Experiment is . . . nothing but the comparative method where the cases to be compared are produced to order and under controlled conditions’ (Talcott Parsons, 1937, P- 743): 2J.S, Mill (1875), vol. I. 3 E, Durkheim (1927), pp. 163 ff.EXPERIMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY 223 short) thus lead us to some such formula as: If A, then B, for in situations s!, s?, s*. . . there are A and B; and in situations s*, s§, s* . .. there are A-changed and B-changed.! The concomitant variations do not mean quite the same thing in J. S. Mill’s Logic and in Durkheim’s sociological treatise. For Mill, they provide the quantitative precision lacking in his other ‘experimental’ methods—the methods of Agreement and Dif- ference—which only demonstrate the occurrence or non- occurrence of a particular phenomenon in conformity with the occurrence or non-occurrence of others; while Durkheim also includes variations of the latter kind, that is, qualitative changes in the situation. Occasionally Durkheim’s method comes as close to purely quantitative variations as is possible in social enquiry, for example, in his classical study of suicide, where he correlates the frequency of suicide (among other things) with the prevalence, in the given societies, of different denominations.? But often Durk- heim’s method is quantitative only in its preliminaries, in the col- lection and assessment of the data, but qualitative in its end results. We cannot otherwise interpret the kind of studies he envisages— studies concerned with the changes that occur, in different societies or historical phases, in the make-up of the family, in practices of marriage, in norms of morality or religious creeds, and so forth. Here, then, it is a question of demonstrating the invariant ‘agree- ment’ (or the opposite) between the social phenomenon investigated and the circumstances in which it appears, disappears, or appears ina particular form. It can be argued, I think, that this extended meaning of ‘con- comitant variations’ is legitimate, and that Mill’s ‘qualitative’ methods in fact only amount to a special, if perhaps cruder, appli- cation of the ‘quantitative’ approach; for the occurrence or non- occurrence of phenomena may be taken to constitute once more quantitative variations, though they are here, as it were, at a maxi- mum or minimum, and of an all-or-none kind. However this may be, it seems clear that in social enquiry the two cannot be separated. For one thing, we cannot do without the ‘cruder’ experiment, and 1In order to distinguish these empirically established ‘invariant relations’ from logical ones (i.e., from relations of implication or entailment) we might phrase our formula more carefully, thus: Where A, there B. But in the present context a confusion of this kind is unlikely to arise. * E. Durkheim (1897), pp. 154-9.224 FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY must as often consider the presence, absence, or changes of par- ticular social facts (institutions, forms of grouping, and the like) as the frequency, prevalence, or certainty with which modes of action appear. And for another, when we speak of the ‘presence’ of an institution or form of grouping we speak implicitly of the pre- valence of the respective modes of action; so that our qualitative variations always conceal quantitative ones, though it is unneces- sary to state them in this form, if not impossible to do so with any precision, We shall therefore in the following discussion under- stand the ‘concomitant variations’ in the wider sense; also, we shall mostly frame our correlations in that all-or-none fashion, disre- garding the quantitative alternative. Now, the method of co-variations presupposes three things. First, in a technical sense, it presupposes some preliminary hypo- thesis or suspicion as to the kind of correlation likely to prove relevant. We have already stressed the part played by such antici- pations of relevance in all forms of scientific enquiry, and we might here add that the series of co-variations we propose to examine may or may not verify these anticipations; also, we shall mostly start out with several such possibilities in mind; but without some such anticipations our experimental method would be committed to that ‘complete observation’ of all facts which is both futile and im- possible.! Secondly, the method of co-variations implies the general postulate that social situations are not made up of random items, but of facts which hang together by some meaningful nexus or intrinsic fitness; for unless this is so, it is clearly useless to search for any concomitance in the variations which social facts may undergo. My third point concerns the fact that the study of co-variations is bound up with judgments on the identity and difference of social facts. These judgments, moreover, must be such that there can be general agreement about them, lest the study of co-variations be reduced to the private computations of individual observers. That we can make such judgments, unaided by the test tubes or indica- tors of the natural scientist, no one will deny; that we also make mistakes or fail to agree, we must admit. But this is not quite all. The study of co-variations is bound up, more specifically, with judgments on similarity and partial identity, the very concept of 1 This important qualification of J. S. Mill’s ‘experimental methods’ has been emphasized by Cohen and Nagel (1939), pp. 143, 147, 153.