What methods did the evolutionist employ? What was the "comparative method," and how did they use it? What was the place of first-hand observation in the research method of the time?
Morgan, Lewis H. 1877. Ancient Society. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Part I, Chaps. 1, 3; Part II, Chap. 2, pp. 61-70 (first 10 pages); Part III, Chaps. 1, 6 (CFAL: JC21 M84 1963; GN478 M67 1985 - on reserve)
Chamberlin, Thomas C. 1890. The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. Science, o.s., 15:92-96 (copy to be distributed)
Hinsley, Curtis M., Jr. 1981. Spencer, Morgan, and Powell: The Intellectual Framework of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 125-140 in Savages and Scientists, by Curtis M. Hinsley, Jr. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press (3 copies on reserve)
Stocking, Chap. 6 (pp. 110-132)
Kaplan, David & Robert Manners. 1972. Culture Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall pp. 38-43 (CFAL GN315 K3 - on reserve)
Recommended: Harris, Marvin. 1968. The Rise of Anthropological Theory. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell (CFAL: GN320 H33 - on reserve) Chap. 6. Evolutionism: Methods (pp. 142-179)
Also of interest:
Powell, John Wesley. 1883. Human Evolution. Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington 2:176-208 (Schwerin)Competition as a Factor in Human Evolution. American Anthropologist, o.s., 1:297-324
1. What kinds of questions are important to Tylor? What is the nature of Tylor's investigative methodology? What fields influenced his thought and underlie his methods? How important are process and dynamics in Tylor's anthropology? What are Tylor's lasting contributions to anthropology?
2. What are the principle arguments in the debate between progessionists (developmentalists) and those proposing a theory of degradation/ degeneration? Where did Tylor stand on this issue? What would the degenerationists have thought of the criticism of Cushing? In what ways does Tylor differ from the other cultural evolutionists in terms of subject matter, methodology, models and explanatory goals? Is it legitimate to consider Tylor an "evolutionist" in the same sense as that label has been applied to Comte, Spencer, Morgan, Engels, Powell, et al?
3. What did Tylor consider "culture"? How is this similar or different from accepted present-day definitions? What is Tylor's fundamental objective in studying "Culture or Civilization"? What aspects of civilization is he interested in? How does he view the relationship between savagery and civilization? On what basis does he reckon the progress of civilization? What is the significance of his concept of "survivals"? How does he relate soul, spirit, and the origins of animism? What is the relation between Tylor's methodology and his ideas of animism and survivals?
4. Does Stocking make sense when he argues that Matthew Arnold's concept of culture is closer to modern ideas than was Tylor's view of culture? What about Stocking's view that Tylor did not fit with the Darwinian paradigm?
5. What is Tylor trying to do in his paper "On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions"? What is the significance and importance of this paper?
6. What are Powell's major contributions to the development of Ethnology? What was the importance of language in his ethnological researches? of geology? How did he define his role in promoting the New Ethnology, as opposed to other investigators? According to Schwerin what are the relative contributions of Powell and Putnam to anthropological theory vs. the organizational and institutional advancement of the discipline? What is the value of each type of effort to the advancement of a discipline like anthropology? How did the institutionalization of anthropological theory in the Bureau of American Ethnology contribute to the passing of the Bureau?
7. Under what conditions did polygenist thought emerge? What were the assumptions of Darwinian polygenists? What was the nature of the argument between monogenism and polygenist thought as presented by Stocking? During the late 19th century, which position was considered the most progressive and scientific? How did this controversy contribute to the debate over the relative importance of heredity vs. environment? What was the effect of increasing precision of measurement on the development of these positions? How was the issue of race linked with the question of cultural and "moral" characteristics? What characterizes polygenist or racialist descriptions of differences? Can these characteristics be found today in social thought, or popular notions of differences?
8. In addition to his scientific researches, what was Powell's concern for the welfare of the Indians? How was this concern expressed within the context of 19th century theoretical assumptions and societal values (i.e. what biases informed both his research and his input into the development of Indian policy)? Are Tylor's and Powell's notions of anthropologically informed social activism similar? How do the methodological orientations of the "renegades" relate to this activism? To public policy formation?
9. What motivated the "renegades" (Cushing Matthews, Dorsey, Mooney) who were unwilling to completely subordinate themselves to Powell's efforts to control the ethnological enterprise? How did they differ methodolo- gically? How did this affect their view of the Indian peoples that they studied? In what sense did they make a lasting contribution to anthro- pology? In what sense did their limitations inhibit such lasting contributions?
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