Editing Franz Boas (section)

==Late 19th century debates==
{{More citations needed|section|date=April 2020}}

===Science versus history===
Some scholars, like Boas's student [[Alfred Kroeber]], believed that Boas used his research in physics as a model for his work in anthropology. Many others, however—including Boas's student [[Alexander Lesser]], and later researchers such as Marian W. Smith, [[Herbert S. Lewis]], and Matti Bunzl—have pointed out that Boas explicitly rejected physics in favor of history as a model for his anthropological research.

This distinction between science and history has its origins in 19th-century German academe, which distinguished between ''Naturwissenschaften'' (the sciences) and ''Geisteswissenschaften'' (the humanities), or between ''Gesetzwissenschaften'' (the law - giving sciences) and ''Geschichtswissenschaften'' (history). Generally, ''Naturwissenschaften'' and ''Gesetzwissenschaften'' refer to the study of phenomena that are governed by objective natural laws, while the latter terms in the two oppositions refer to those phenomena that have to mean only in terms of human perception or experience.

In 1884, [[Immanuel Kant|Kantian]] philosopher [[Wilhelm Windelband]] coined the terms [[nomothetic]] and [[idiographic]] to describe these two divergent approaches. He observed that most scientists employ some mix of both, but in differing proportions; he considered physics a perfect example of a nomothetic science, and history, an idiographic science. Moreover, he argued that each approach has its origin in one of the two "interests" of reason [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] had identified in the ''Critique of Judgment''—one "generalizing", the other "specifying". (Winkelband's student [[Heinrich Rickert]] elaborated on this distinction in ''The Limits of Concept Formation in Natural Science : A Logical Introduction to the Historical Sciences''; Boas's students [[Alfred Kroeber]] and [[Edward Sapir]] relied extensively on this work in defining their own approach to anthropology.)

Although Kant considered these two interests of reason to be objective and universal, the distinction between the natural and human sciences was institutionalized in Germany, through the organization of scholarly research and teaching, following the Enlightenment. In Germany, the Enlightenment was dominated by Kant himself, who sought to establish principles based on universal rationality. In reaction to Kant, German scholars such as [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] (an influence to Boas)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/herder/ |title=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Johann Gottfried von Herder |date=2007-09-27 |access-date=2016-05-20 |author=Michael Forster}}</ref> argued that human creativity, which necessarily takes unpredictable and highly diverse forms, is as important as human rationality. In 1795, the great [[Linguistics|linguist]] and philosopher [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]] called for an anthropology that would synthesize Kant's and Herder's interests. Humboldt founded the [[University of Berlin]] in 1809, and his work in geography, history, and psychology provided the milieu in which Boas's intellectual orientation matured.

Historians working in the Humboldtian tradition developed ideas that would become central in Boasian anthropology. [[Leopold von Ranke]] defined the task of the historian as "merely to show as it actually was", which is a cornerstone of Boas's empiricism. [[Wilhelm Dilthey]] emphasized the centrality of "understanding" to human knowledge, and that the lived experience of a historian could provide a basis for an empathic understanding of the situation of a historical actor.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=0gN2LBm3MXsC ''A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883–1911''], [[University of Chicago Press]], 1989, p. 11.</ref> For Boas, both values were well-expressed in a quote from Goethe: "A single action or event is interesting, not because it is explainable, but because it is true."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o60oDwAAQBAJ&q=A+single+action+or+event+is+interesting%2C+not+because+it+is+explainable%2C+but+because+it+is+trueA+single+action+or+event+is+interesting%2C+not+because+it+is+explainable%2C+but+because+it+is+true&pg=PA20|title=The Franz Boas Papers, Volume 1: Franz Boas as Public Intellectual{{snd}}Theory, Ethnography, Activism|last1=Darnell|first1=Regna|last2=Smith|first2=Joshua|last3=Hamilton|first3=Michelle|last4=Hancock|first4=Robert L. A.|year=2015|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-6984-2}}</ref>

The influence of these ideas on Boas is apparent in his 1887 essay, "The Study of Geography", in which he distinguished between physical science, which seeks to discover the laws governing phenomena, and historical science, which seeks a thorough understanding of phenomena on their own terms. Boas argued that geography is and must be historical in this sense. In 1887, after his Baffin Island expedition, Boas wrote "The Principles of Ethnological Classification", in which he developed this argument in application to anthropology:

{{blockquote|Ethnological phenomena are the result of the physical and psychical character of men, and of its development under the influence of the surroundings&nbsp;... 'Surroundings' are the physical conditions of the country, and the sociological phenomena, i.e., the relation of man to man. Furthermore, the study of the present surroundings is insufficient: the history of the people, the influence of the regions through which it has passed on its migrations, and the people with whom it came into contact, must be considered<ref>Boas and Stocking 1989.</ref>}}

This formulation echoes Ratzel's focus on historical processes of human migration and culture contact and Bastian's rejection of environmental determinism. It also emphasizes culture as a context ("surroundings"), and the importance of history. These are the hallmarks of Boasian anthropology (which [[Marvin Harris]] would later call "[[historical particularism]]"), would guide Boas's research over the next decade, as well as his instructions to future students. (See Lewis 2001b for an alternative view to Harris'.)

Although context and history were essential elements to Boas's understanding of anthropology as ''Geisteswissenschaften'' and ''Geschichtswissenschaften'', there is one essential element that Boasian anthropology shares with ''Naturwissenschaften'': empiricism. In 1949, Boas's student [[Alfred Kroeber]] summed up the three principles of empiricism that define Boasian anthropology as a science:
# The method of science is, to begin with, questions, not with answers, least of all with value judgments.
# Science is a dispassionate inquiry and therefore cannot take over outright any ideologies "already formulated in everyday life" since these are themselves inevitably traditional and normally tinged with emotional prejudice.
# Sweeping all-or-none, black-and-white judgments are characteristic of categorical attitudes and have no place in science, whose very nature is inferential and judicious.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kroeber |first=A. L. |date=1949 |title=An Authoritarian Panacea |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/664123 |journal=American Anthropologist |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=318–320 |doi=10.1525/aa.1949.51.2.02a00210 |jstor=664123 |pmid=18153430 |issn=0002-7294}}</ref>

===Orthogenetic versus Darwinian evolution===
[[File:Huxley - Mans Place in Nature.png|thumb|right|An illustration from ''[[Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature]]'' (1863) by [[Thomas Henry Huxley]], which became emblematic of the now-discredited idea of [[orthogenesis|evolution as linear progress]]]]
One of the greatest accomplishments of Boas and his students was their critique of theories of physical, social, and cultural evolution current at that time. This critique is central to Boas's work in museums, as well as his work in all four fields of anthropology. As historian [[George W. Stocking Jr.|George Stocking]] noted, however, Boas's main project was to distinguish between biological and cultural heredity, and to focus on the cultural processes that he believed had the greatest influence over social life.<ref>Stocking, George W. Jr. 1968. Race, culture, and evolution: Essays in the history of anthropology. New York: Free Press. 264</ref> In fact, Boas supported Darwinian theory, although he did not assume that it automatically applied to cultural and historical phenomena (and indeed was a lifelong opponent of 19th-century theories of [[cultural evolution]], such as those of [[Lewis H. Morgan]] and [[Edward Burnett Tylor]]).<ref>Alexander Lesser, 1981 "Franz Boas" p. 25 in Sydel Silverman, ed. ''From Totems to Teachers'' New York: Columbia University Press</ref> The notion of evolution that the Boasians ridiculed and rejected was the then dominant belief in [[orthogenesis]]—a determinate or [[teleology|teleological]] process of evolution in which change occurs progressively regardless of [[natural selection]]. Boas rejected the prevalent theories of [[Sociocultural evolution|social evolution]] developed by Edward Burnett Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, and [[Herbert Spencer]] not because he rejected the notion of "evolution" per se, but because he rejected orthogenetic notions of evolution in favor of Darwinian evolution.

The difference between these prevailing theories of cultural evolution and Darwinian theory cannot be overstated: the orthogeneticists argued that all societies progress through the same stages in the same sequence. Thus, although the [[Inuit]] with whom Boas worked at [[Baffin Island]], and the [[German people|Germans]] with whom he studied as a graduate student, were contemporaries of one another, evolutionists argued that the Inuit were at an earlier stage in their evolution, and Germans at a later stage.

Boasians argued that virtually every claim made by cultural evolutionists was contradicted by the data, or reflected a profound misinterpretation of the data. As Boas's student [[Robert Lowie]] remarked, "Contrary to some misleading statements on the subject, there have been no responsible opponents of evolution as 'scientifically proved', though there has been determined hostility to an evolutionary metaphysics that falsifies the established facts". In an unpublished lecture, Boas characterized his debt to Darwin thus:

<blockquote>Although the idea does not appear quite definitely expressed in Darwin's discussion of the development of mental powers, it seems quite clear that his main object has been to express his conviction that the mental faculties developed essentially without a purposive end, but they originated as variations, and were continued by natural selection. This idea was also brought out very clearly by Wallace, who emphasized that apparently reasonable activities of man might very well have developed without an actual application of reasoning.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lewis |first=Herbert S. |date=2018-05-03 |title="The Relation of Darwin to Anthropology": A Previously Unpublished Lecture by Franz Boas (1909) |url=https://histanthro.org/clio/the-relation-of-darwin-to-anthropology/ |access-date=2022-07-04 |website=History of Anthropology Review |language=English}}</ref></blockquote>

Thus, Boas suggested that what appear to be patterns or structures in a culture were not a product of conscious design, but rather the outcome of diverse mechanisms that produce cultural variation (such as diffusion and independent invention), shaped by the social environment in which people live and act. Boas concluded his lecture by acknowledging the importance of Darwin's work: "I hope I may have succeeded in presenting to you, however imperfectly, the currents of thought due to the work of the immortal Darwin which have helped to make anthropology what it is at the present time."<ref>Boas, 1909 lecture; see Lewis 2001b.</ref>