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Warfare and Western Manufactures: A Case Study of Explanation in Anthropology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Daniel Steel
Daniel Steel*
Affiliation:
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
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Abstract

I use an explanation of Yanomami warfare given by the anthropologist Brian Ferguson as a case study to compare the merits of the causal and unification approaches to explanation. I argue that Ferguson's insistence on explaining actual occurrences and patterns of Yanomami warfare together with his claim that all of his generalizations are statistical raises difficulties for the unification approach, because of its commitment to “deductive chauvinism.” Moreover, I show that there are serious difficulties involved in comparing the “unifying power” of Ferguson's explanations to those of his competitors. I show that the causal approach can provide a rich analysis of Ferguson's explanation while avoiding these difficulties.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 65 , Issue 4 , December 1998 , pp. 649 - 671
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1998

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Footnotes

†

Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.

‡

I would like to thank Wes and Merrilee Salmon and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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