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Anthropology as Science and the Anthropology of Science and of Anthropology or Understanding and Explanation in the Social Sciences, Part II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

I.C Jarvie
I.C Jarvie*
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
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Extract

To begin with, an apology for ray subtitle, which consciously but unforgivably alludes to Hollywood's current fondness for numbered sequels to successful films. My intention was to signal that this paper, like a film such as Halloween II, will make further use of old materials, partly to bring the story up to date, partly to re-work material of proven box-office value, partly to answer those critics who, perhaps, deserve an answer.

Synoptically speaking the paper returns to the issue of whether anthropology aims to understand or to explain. No claim was made in Part I (Jarvie 1970) that the two are mutually exclusive, only that understanding is a vague idea which derives much of its appeal from poor anthropological information about science and its aims. Part I concentrated mainly on criticising Peter Winch's ethnography of science and of Azande witchcraft.

Type
Part XVIII. Philosophical Problems of Anthropology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1984 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1984 , 1984 , pp. 745 - 763
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

Part I would be my paper (Jarvie 1970), revised and expanded as chapter 2 of (Jarvie 1972).

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