The Integration of Anthropology

Abstract

ing parts for which tools are at hand, the anthropologist generally prefers to worry a whole problem without success than to operate successfully with good tools on something not really there. In this he differs from not only most economists but from most sociologists and psychologists as well. It is a characteristic probably related both to the natural science and natural his? tory background of most early anthropolo? gists and to their deliberate selection of a large and complex problem which they insisted must be attacked from all sides at once. It is also related to the necessities of the field situation in which a lone anthro? pologist typically faces the wholeness of a society and culture in their ecological setting, where most obviously all things are interdependent and very real. The Integration of Anthropology?Tax 321 It is probably an incident and an accident that anthropology became particu? larly associated (notably in North America) with the social sciences (Kroeber, 1953). Economics, politics, and jurisprudence had developed concurrently with the subjects that came together to form anthropology. None of the anthropological subjects was closely related to these original social sci? ences, and it appears that, with respect to both people and ideas, anthropology?un? like sociology?was formed quite independ? ently of them. Hume, Mill, and Marx are names common to all the others but not to anthropology; Comte and Spencer are markedly absent from contemporary an? thropological journals. The connections be? tween anthropology on the one hand and the central social sciences on the other, however important they may be, are late and different in different countries. Some anthropologists of course always have been close to sociologists, as others have been close to historians or physiologists. Theo? retical studies of the evolution of the family ?by Bachhofen, McLennan, Morgan?have been a special link; another has been the French group (led by Durkheim) who identify with sociology and social anthropology alike. But although in the 1880's men like Lester Ward and J. W. Powell both were active in the Washington Anthropological Society, the two disciplines generally have been farther apart than university organiza? tion leads one to believe. There were departments of anthropology in American universities as early as depart? ments of sociology, sometimes earlier; but a sociology department where there was no anthropology department often sought an anthropologist to teach its "social origins" material; and eventually there came to be combined departments of sociology and anthropology. Similarly many universities in grouping subjects into larger divisions classified anthropology among the social sciences rather than with the biological sci? ences or the humanities where the roots of anthropology are at least as strong. This has led occasionally to an identifica? tion (even by anthropologists) that needs correction. In tradition, spirit, and method anthropology is not particularly a social science, and neither administrative convenience nor the need to classify is likely to make it one. Anthropology has a contribu? tion to make to the social sciences?and in the tradition of anthropology it also uses what knowledge and tools they develop? but its best contributions will presumably be "anthropological," stemming from its