The Foundations oj Social Anthropology hy LONDON: COHEN and WEST LTD CONTENTS CHAPT!II PAGE 5 The Dynamic Properties of Mental Events 302 6 Psychological Linkage 3 I 3 7 Energy in Explanation 323 XII PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS: ACTION POTENTIALS 1 Instincts and Pseudo-Instincts 328 2 Generic Action Potentials 333 3 The Limits of Psycho
Original Description:
Original Title
Foundations of Social Anthropology_S. F. Nadel_Ch_IX_Experimental Anthropology
The Foundations oj Social Anthropology hy LONDON: COHEN and WEST LTD CONTENTS CHAPT!II PAGE 5 The Dynamic Properties of Mental Events 302 6 Psychological Linkage 3 I 3 7 Energy in Explanation 323 XII PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS: ACTION POTENTIALS 1 Instincts and Pseudo-Instincts 328 2 Generic Action Potentials 333 3 The Limits of Psycho
The Foundations oj Social Anthropology hy LONDON: COHEN and WEST LTD CONTENTS CHAPT!II PAGE 5 The Dynamic Properties of Mental Events 302 6 Psychological Linkage 3 I 3 7 Energy in Explanation 323 XII PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS: ACTION POTENTIALS 1 Instincts and Pseudo-Instincts 328 2 Generic Action Potentials 333 3 The Limits of Psycho
The
Foundations
of
Social Anthropology
by
S. F. NADEL
Professor of Anthropology, Australian National University
LONDON : COHEN & WEST LTD
1953CONTENTS
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
415Contents
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
118x 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 298CHAPTER 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.
Robert L. Tignor, "Book Review - On Barak, On Time: Technology and Temporality in Modern Egypt," American Historical Review 119, No. 2 (2014) : 645-646.
BARTON, David HAMILTON, Mary. Local Literacies. Reading and Writing in One Community. London Routledge, 1998. (Chap 1 Understanding Literacy As Social Practice) Pp. 3-22