(theory1) Aug.2000

CLASSICAL THEORY

LECTURE ONE: Paradigmatic Shifts in the Social Sciences.

1. The importance and complexity of the topic.

As social scientists and citizens of the later twentieth century the theoretical structures of earlier ages are part of the air we breathe. We are trapped by them and the language they generate. The only way to partial liberation is through a detached analysis of the ways in which they were created and the reasons. Here, therefore, I will be attempting an albeit heavily compressed and distorted panoramic view of the history and development of the social sciences and history through time. A very broad map, with all the deficiencies thereof.

2. Modern overviews of time/change social configurations and their origins: the tools of thought. ('Idols of the mind')

a) Stages:

Anthropology: Primitive; Archaic; Market (Polanyi similar to Spencer and Durkheim)
Hunter/gatherer; Tribal; Peasant; Industrial
Savage; Barbarian; Civilized (Morgan)

Sociology
(main stream): Communal (blood); Militaristic; Industrial (Spencer)
Community; Association (Tonnies)
Traditional; Modern
Mechanical; Organic (Durkheim)
Theological; Metaphysical; Positivistic knowledge (Comte)

Marxist(Primitive communities):
Tribal; Feudal; Capitalist; Socialist/Communist; Law; Status; Contract

History: Ancient; Medieval (Early Modern); Modern

Archaeology (3 age: Scandinavian C19)
Stone; Bronze; Iron;
Palaeolithic; Neolithic; Bronze; Iron (Avebury)
(three age system the 'corner stone of modern archaeology' Macalister)

Demography: Pre transition; Transition; Post Transition.

N.B.
1) Nearly all of these are alike and almost all of them are later nineteenth century refinements on the divisions suggested in the later eighteenth century.
2) When we think of such major structural stages, 'it is exceedingly difficult to avoid the implication of purposive change and ultimate cause.' Hence we tend to be all Developmentalists of one kind or another.

20th century contribution?
a)Stretch out a few of them, e.g. 'early modern'
b)1st/2nd/3rd/4th World
c)Pre industrial/Industrial/Post industrial



b) The forces which push societies from one to another: the determining variable.

The major candidates now are:

1) Demography/population this is a central nineteenth century theme in work of Malthus, Darwin, Durkheim. It is still with us in work of Boserup et al.

2) Technology/discovery/invention this is implicit in many frameworks, e.g. Braudel, Goody.

3) Rationalization the central tidal force and explanation for Weber: Weber's moving spirit of history: rationalization. '...the conclusion that tradionalization of labor management relationships, of government, religion, and culture in general was a tidal force in modern history that must sweep everything before it. Rationalization serves Weber precisely as equalitarianism serves Tocqueville. In each we see a historical tendency...applicable to patterns of culture and thought in all civilizations.'

4) Dialectic and internal disequilibrium Marx: '...the dialectic is the change process. Without the antagonistic interchange between polar units there is no change. Every structure through a process of differentiation provides the basis for internal contradictions necessary for change...To this they added a purposive evolutionary advance of society...'

5) 'Development' a natural tendency: Law of development just as there are laws in the physical world, encompassed by one law, that of Gravitation, 'The organic...rests in like manner on one law, and that is, DEVELOPMENT...'

6) Natural tendency towards equalization De Tocqueville.
7) Struggle and competition and elimination of weaker Darwin.

8) Growing sub division and specialization over time Durkheim and H. Spencer.

Note. They exhaust almost all the possibilities of the engines??/forces of change and the moment we start thinking, we land on one of them. Again, mostly nineteenth century.


Thus the roots of the social sciences in a particular paradigm and historical experience in part of the world. This is recognized:

a) SOCIOLOGY

The two phases of evolutionism the basis of social science. 'Eighteenth century progressivists must be credited with outlining the base upon which social science could be erected...nineteenth century developmentalists broadened and deepened the eighteenth century effort by anchoring social processes to laws governing the organization and processes of matter...'

The idea of the great formative period of sociology Nisbet argues that this is between 1830 (i.e. De Tocqueville) and 1900 (i.e. end of Weber/Durkheim). Why was this period so important?

Sociology born in evolutionism 'Sociologists August Comte and Herbert Spencer pioneered in developing a theoretical base for an evolutionary science of society.


b) ANTHROPOLOGY

Evolutionism as the basis for anthropology. 'The idea of evolution provided the unifying theory for the emergent anthropological discipline and the rationale for its unique comparative method as well...'The evolutionary perspective provided a perfect intellectual catalyst for the emphasis on the physical and prehistorical development of man and culture. The idea that all living forms were united in a common descent with modification opened up panoramic vistas with regard to the physical history of man...'
The two major periods 1750 1790 Kames et al
1850 1890 Tylor, Morgan et al


c)ARCHAEOLOGY
The roots of archaeology and anthropology the same and both in the optimism of the third quarter of the nineteenth century. 'Just as archaeology was born in the decades between 1850 and 1870, so was its collateral science of anthropology. Indeed anthropology, defined as the study of man, at least in theory, and the study of primitive man in practice, might be said to include some aspects of archaeology...Where anthropology and archaeology meet is in prehistory...(goes on to discuss Tylor and Morgan).

Some ways of approaching the subject.

Kuhn's work.

One of the most widely cited accounts of such shifts is that of Thomas Kuhn in his 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'. Kuhn's work usefully showed the relativity of science that it was subject to fashion, that it did not evolve from darkness to light (as in Lecky on Rationalism), that it was a matter of the replacement of world views. In other words, dealing mainly with revolutions in astronomy (Copernicus) and chemistry (Boyle) and physics (Newton and Einstein), he shows how rather than being overthrown by evidence and data of a new kind in a sense there was an inner revolution which saw the same data in a different light. In other words the nature of the questions altered and the nature of what was accepted as a solution to old questions altered.

He defines 'paradigm' in several ways. At one time it looks like a model achievement: paradigms 'I take to be universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.

Why do some succeed? 'to be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted.' (But this avoids the question of why it seems better than its competitors).

'Paradigms gain their status because they are more successful than their competitors in solving a few problems that the group of practitioners has come to recognize as acute. To be more successful is not, however, to be either completely successful with a single problem or notably successful with any large number. The success of a paradigm...is at the start largely a promise of success discoverable in selected and still incomplete examples...'
One background factor is the awareness of an anomaly which 'plays a role in the emergence of new sorts of phenomena.' (But why the awareness of anomaly).

Kuhn argues that 'crisis are a necessary precondition for the emergence of novel theories.' (But what kind of crises?)

Certainly it is not a matter of disproving theories by experiment 'No process yet disclosed by the historical study of scientific development at all resembles the methodological stereotype of falsification by direct comparison with nature.'

Why the Galilean revolution?

'Why did that shift of vision occur? Through Galileo's individual genius, of course. But note that genius does not here manifest itself in more accurate or objective observation of the swinging body. Descriptively, the Aristotelian perception is just as accurate...Rather, what seems to have been involved was the exploitation by genius of perceptual possibilities made available by a medieval paradigm shift.' (But why the medieval paradigm shift?)

'What occurs during a scientific revolution is not fully reducible to a reinterpretation of individual and stable data. Though the world does not change with a change of paradigm, the scientist afterward works in a different world.'

'Periods of 'normal science' or earlier paradigms 'are not corrigible by normal science at all...(there is a recognition of anomalies and crises)...these are terminated, not be deliberation and interpretation, but by a relatively sudden and unstructured event like the gestalt (sic) switch.' ('Scales falling from their eyes'/Eureka syndrome cf Malinowski's diary??) but why?

'As a result of those crises and of other intellectual changes besides, Galileo saw the swinging stone quite differently.' but what were these 'other intellectual changes' and were they limited to intellectual?

A new paradigm 'emerges first in the mind of one or a few individuals', how are they able to convert the profession? mutual misunderstanding about even what the problems are. Thus Darwin: 'Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume...I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists...But I look with confidence to the future...' Likewise M. Planck 'a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents...but rather because its opponents eventually die...' But this is religious hope and faith. Why should the younger generation side with the new paradigm? Again we are left in the lurch.

What Kuhn, in fact does, is to show that scientific explanations and paradigms are fashions nearer to myths than many would have cared to believe. Speaking of Aristotelian dynamics etc., 'if these out of date beliefs are to be called myths, then myths can be produced by the same sorts of methods and held for the same sorts of reasons that now lead to scientific knowledge.'

But Kuhn is totally incapable of showing why these myths change. He has adequately shown that the old (nineteenth century) explanation of the reasons for the change, i.e. that the new one is self evidently, 'better', 'more powerful', or leaps out of new 'facts' is wrong; But he has no explanation of why the revolutions occur neither why they occur, why they occur when they do, why they take the shape they do etc. Hence, as a guide in our task of explaining the major shifts in theories of evolution and change in the West, he is a broken straw.

Indeed, in the preface to the work, he admits that he has really failed to explain the reasons for change. In other words he has failed to provide a theory of change or paradigm shifts which will account for changes in theories of change.

'More important, except in occasional brief asides, I have said nothing about the role of technological advance or of external social, economic, and intellectual conditions in the development of the sciences. One need, however, look no further than Copernicus and the calendar to discover that external conditions may help to transform a mere anomaly into a source of acute crisis. The same example would illustrate the way in which conditions outside the man who seeks to end a crisis by proposing one or another revolutionary form. (footnote to other works by K. in which he claims to discuss some of these factors). Explicit consideration of effects like these would not, I think, modify the main theses developed in this essay, but it would surely add an analytic dimension of first rate importance for the understanding of scientific advance.'


ANTHROPOLOGISTS WORLD VIEWS.

A recognition that 'paradigms' are really large scale fashions or 'myths' is implicit of explicit in the work of many anthropologists. Sometimes they apply this to western concepts:

e.g. Leach.
'In academic work the evaluation of concepts depends as much upon fashion as upon utility. In the decade following World War II the concept of 'social structure' became extremely fashionable among social anthropologists and at times attained such extreme generality that it could be applied to almost any ordered arrangement of social phenomena.' In a sense these lectures will be looking at some of the 'fashions' which have lain behind the major explanatory frameworks of the social sciences over the last 400 years. For what Leach does not do is to explain why these fashions arise and decline why, for example, did 'structuralism' in various forms dominate the social sciences between about 1900 and 1960?

e.g. Kroeber.
Kroeber has extended this to a consideration of changes in western ideas of time: 'Popularly, evolution is almost synonymous with progress; and progress means advance to something better. Actually, the idea of progress is itself a culture phenomenon of some interest. Strange as it may seem to us, most of humanity during most of its history was not imbued at all with the idea. An essentially static world, a nearly static mankind, were most likely to be taken for granted. If there was any notion of alteration, a deterioration from the golden age of the beginnings as frequently believed in as an advance.'
Kroeber then gives a lightning sketch of this major shift: 'A definite system of belief in progress began to acquire strength only in eighteenth century Europe. Reinforced by the French Revolution, it became a sort of article of liberal faith in the nineteenth century. It entered into the philosophy of Comte and Spencer. The latter saw evolution as a manifestation of progress. Darwin, who propounded a mechanism by which organic change might be explained a mechanism about which the man in the street is mostly still a bit hazy was popularly acclaimed as having 'proved evolution' that is, progress...There is a certain nobility about this sentiment of liberalism; but it is indubitably a sentiment and a dogma, and not a scientific conclusion.
In other words, looked at cross comparatively, the idea of progressive evolution is one of the great a priori assumptions of western civilization. It lies behind much of our philosophy, science etc.
Kroeber continues that 'the concept of the progress of humanity is a special characteristic of contemporary Western civilization; that within this civilization it generally has the force of an a priori assumption; like most a prior's, it is adhered to with considerable fervour of emotion.' It is also a view which has been put forward by philosophers, psychiatrists etc. e.g.:

But from the writing of anthropologists we can learn some fundamentally important insights:

a) We can distinguish the three major types of concept of time, as does Leach.
Three ways of thinking of time: lineal, circular, oscillatory: 'We ourselves, in thinking about time, are far too closely tied to the formulations of the astronomers; if we do not refer to time as if it were a coordinate straight line stretching from an infinite past to an infinite figure, we describe it as a circle or cycle...(when we describe time as 'cyclic' in primitive societies, we innocently introduce a geometrical notation which may well be entirely absent in the thinking of the people concerned). Indeed in some primitive societies it would seem that the time process is not experienced as a 'succession of epochal durations' al all; there is no sense of going on and on in the same direction, or round and round the same wheel. On the contrary, time is experienced as something discontinuous, a repetition of repeated reversal, a sequence of oscillations between polar opposites: night and day, winter and summer, drought and flood, age and youth, life and death. In such a scheme the past has no 'depth' to it, all past is equally past; it is simply the opposite of now.

b) We can see the best consequences of a move from one system to another; i.e. embedded at the heart of things. e.g.
Horton.
Progress, the open predicament and the sense of time: 'the person who enjoys the moving world of the sciences, then, enjoys the exhilaration of the skater. But for many, this is a nervous, insecure sensation, which they would fain exchange for the womb like warmth of the traditional theories and their defences. This lingering sense of insecurity gives a powerful attraction to the idea of progress. For by enabling people to cling to some hoped for future state of perfect knowledge, it helps them live with a realization of the imperfection and transience of present theories. Once formed, indeed, the idea of Progress becomes in itself one of the most powerful supports of the scientific attitude generally. For the faith that, come what may, new experience must lead to better theories, and that better theories must eventually give place to still better ones, provides the strongest possible incentive for a constant readiness to expose oneself to the strange and the disturbing, to scrap current frameworks of ideas, and to cast about for replacements.'

c) We become aware of the way in which time and history is manipulable. e.g.
Tiv genealogies and the manipulation of time. Absence, or particular form of writing, allows flexibility to time: 'In her article on Tiv genealogies, Mrs. Bohannan says that "the way in which Tiv learn genealogies and the lack of written record allow changes to occur through time without a general realization of the occurrence of that change; social change can exist with a doctrine of social permanence.' Peters has been able to show that even where genealogies are written, the form in which they are written may allow amendments to be made to accommodate present day relations, particularly where many persons bear similar names...'

d) We are given some hints as to a few of the reasons for such concepts of time as well as absence of writing, also Bourdieu suggests:

i) Technological insecurity Man at the mercy of nature and therefore of time...Submission to nature is inseperable from submission to the passage of time scanned in the rhythm of nature. The profound feelings of dependence and solidarity towards that nature whose vagaries and rigours he suffers, together with the rhythms and constraints to which he feels the more subject since his techniques are particularly precarious, foster in the Kabyle peasant an attitude of submission and of nonchalant indifference to the passage of time which no one dreams of mastering, using up, or saving.'

ii) Absence of money Time and money: 'Thus, the use of money, in contrast to trade in kind, presupposes adopting the perspective of the possible, a projective attitude admitting an infinite number of possibilities which may equally be realized or not...The use of money supposes the vision of an abstract future, imagined and absent, while barter like hoarding sees a concrete 'forthcoming' within reach in pre perceptive anticipation, and in the mode of belief.'

But by far the most important lesson is the Durkheimian one that notions of time and history etc. are not absolute but are flexible and related to the social and political etc. system. The point is well made by Robert Lowie in general.
The interconnections between space and time: 'Conceptual, spatial, temporal, and causal aspects of culture are not so many distinct realities; insight into any one of them enhances our comprehension of the rest. Here, if anywhere, the functionalist point of view should be applied.'
N.B. THIS IS THE CENTRAL THEME OF THE LECTURE.

It is demonstrated superbly in Evans Pritchard's discussion of time among the Nuer, which is worth elaborating. This Sudanese pastoral tribe in the 1930s according to Evans Pritchard have two types of time: 'In describing Nuer concepts of time we may distinguish between those that are mainly reflections of their relations to environment, which we call ecological time, and those that are reflections of their relations to one another in the social structure, which we call structural time. Structural time appears to an individual passing through the social system to be entirely progressive, but, as we shall see, in a sense this is an illusion. Ecological time appears to be, and is, cyclical.
Ecological time is qualitative and oscillatory (Leach's word).
Qualitative vs. quantitative time: 'time has not the same value throughout the year...When time is considered as relations between activities it will be understood that it has a different connotation in rains and drought.' Its duration and movement is determined by activities and technology etc. 'The Nuer do not have to co ordinate their activities with an abstract passage of time, because their points of reference are the activities themselves...one does not make fishing dams because it is November; it is November one makes fishing dams.'

Units of time and measurements of time: There are no units of time between the month and day and night. There are terms for today, tomorrow, yesterday etc. there but there is no procession about the. The daily timepiece is the cattle clock, the round of pastoral tasks, and the time of day and the passage of time through a day are to a Nuer primarily the succession of these tasks and the relations to one another. It is the activities themselves,s chiefly of an economic kind, which are basic to the system and furnish most of its units and notations, and the passage of time is perceived in the relation of activities to one another.'

The implication of this when applied,e.g. to different ecologies or productive systems is immense. Obviously industrial time is going to be entirely different. The consequences are immense.

No idea of abstract passage of time: 'Though I have spoken of time and units of time the Nuer have no expression equivalent to 'time' in our language, and they cannot, therefore, as we can, speak of time as though it were something actual, which passes, can be wasted,can be saved, and so forth. I do not think that they ever experience the same feeling of fighting against time or of having to coordinate activities with an abstract passage of time, because their points of reference are mainly the activities themselves, which are generally of a leisurely character. Events follow a logical order, but they are not controlled by an abstract system, there being no autonomous points of reference to which activities have to conform with precision. Nuer are fortunate. This is illuminating enough, but Evans Pritchard then proceeds to show that time concepts are also influenced by space. The shallowness (depth of time is related to what is known about the world). This is something which has vast implications for the development of the social sciences, as we shall see. Evans Pritchard writes on shallowness of time; related to limitations of space: 'It will have been noted that the Nuer time dimension is shallow...Time is thus not a continuum, but is a constant structural relationship between two points, the first and last persons in a line of agnatic descent. How shall is Nuer time may be judged from the fact that the tree under which mankind came into being was still standing in Western Nuerland a few years ago!

Beyond the annual cycle, time reckoning is a conceptualization of the social structure, and the points of reference are a projection into the past of actual relations between groups of persons. It is less a means of co ordinating events than of co ordinating relationships, and is therefore mainly a looking backwards, since relationships must be explained in terms of the past.'

Thus it is not merely a matter of time and space being related in an Einsteinian way, it is not just geographical space but social and political space. This is explained again.
Shallow depth of structural time: 'Moreover, since time is to Nuer an order of events of outstanding significance to a group, each group has its own points of reference and time is consequently relative to structural space, locally considered...In course of time the names of years are forgotten and all events beyond the limits of this crude historical reckoning fade into the dim vista of long long ago. Historical time, in this sense of a sequence of outstanding events of significance to a tribe, goes back much farther than the historical time of smaller groups,but fifty years is probably its limit.

Again, time is related to kinship relations.
Structural time related to kinship: 'Time perspective is here not a true impression of actual distances like that created by our dating technique, but a reflection of relations between lineages, so that the traditional events recorded have to be placed at the points where the lineages concerned in them converge in their lines of ascent...Time is thus not a continuum, but is a constant structural relationship between two points, the first and last persons in a line of agnatic descent.'

The implication of this more widely is that time is not determined mainly by ecology , technology or even relations of production but by political and social relations more generally. As Evans Pritchard puts it in talking of 'structural time': 'There is, however, a point at which we can say that time concepts cease to be determined by ecologically factors and become more determined by structural interrelations, being no longer a reflection of man's dependence on nature, but a reflection of the interaction of social groups. Evans Pritchard then develops a similar schemata for space.
Two types of space: 'Oecological distance, in this sense, is a relation between communities defined in terms of density and distribution, and with reference to water, vegetation, animal and insect life, and so on. Structural distance is of a very different order...By structural distance is means the distance between groups of persons in a social system, expressed in terms of values. For our more general purposes, however, the importance is...??
N.B. one of Evans Pritchard's major insights, surely with wider applicability, is that among the Nuer, concepts of time and space are closely interrelated (hence chapter on 'Time and Space'. Hence, at a wider level, the disciplines of anthropology and sociology on the one hand and archaeology and history on the other are very closely related at a very deep level. Time thus becomes an aspect of the social structure and history fairly indistinguishable from myth. Thus what anthropologists say of myth, applies to time and history.
Myth (and hence history and time) as charter etc.: 'Their myths and legends are one means of rationalizing and defining the structural relationships of group to group or the pattern of their institutions.'

(Drawing on these discussions and elaborating them somewhat, we may distinguish the following major ways of regarding time and history).

Conclusions to Lecture 1.

1. We know that there are 'paradigmatic shifts' in world views: we are imprisoned in them.

2. The history of all the social sciences most broadly interpreted give an example of several of these particularly in relation to concepts such as 'time', 'progress', 'evolution' etc.

3. It would appear that anthropological work in very simplest societies suggests that shifts from one to another are related to:

a) Technology (writing, money, agricultural technology)
b) Social relationships
c) Political relationships

4. It would be helpful to end on a simple representation.

(SEE ORIGINAL for spectrum of possible types of change in a system.)


A preliminary suggestion as to the reasons for the overall shape:

Pre Evolutionary

Evolutionary

Post Evolutionary
Expansion and empire

Overview of broad phases.
If we take a very broad overview of world history over the period A.D.1 to A.D.1850, we can discern several major periods. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, European states were weak and the object of predation from the East from Huns, Magars, Turks, Arabs etc. Until about the later fifteenth century Europe was liable to be over run and the cycle might come round again. Then for about three hundred years Europe, and particularly northern Europe in the second half, began to take the initiative, to move out and explore and to gain a feeling of self confidence. Things did progress and change and people could conspicuously become wealthier. We need not merely to try to collect together the scraps of a surviving higher civilization which had disappeared and among whose ravaged ruins we now lived.

Then for a little over a century, the tide which had began to change flowed the other way immensely rapidly. European ideas and technology and domination flowed out all over the world. The white race seemed to be destined to rule the world. It was against this background that the proper evolutionism of the nineteenth century can be set.

Attitudes towards space and time as influenced by political relations.
One way of partially explaining alterations in concepts of the past and other societies lies in the relations between the observers societies (Europe/N. America) and the observed: very crudely one might put it thus: (SEE ORIGINAL FILE FOR FIGS THAT GO WITH THIS)

Date Europe/N.America's relation to the rest Paradigm
of world & antiquity
to 1750 rough equality
1750 1820 growing technological/economic superiority
1850 1890 massive technological/political superiority
1900 1950 retreat from superiority
1950 1980 America dominant

Thus one might fit anthropology/archaeology/sociology/history as systems of explanation into the twin relations of the theorists society with:
a) the past of its own society
b) other societies

Evolutionary views and technological/political dominance.
One necessary, if not sufficient, cause of an evolutionary view may be a gap in technology/politics. There would thus be no coincidence that evolutionism is no longer in favour in Europe which, from c.1890 onwards has lost dominion, and it would be no coincidence that the 'new evolutionism' is most conspicuous in American anthropology and archaeology, which feels itself superior technologically, economically, politically and hence in a historical/evolutionary fashion. Thus the alterations between static/circular/evolutionary views are related to the actual state of a society, but to its relations to other societies (as in relative deprivation in reverse). Clearly an evolutionary view is a useful ideology for action/rule/empire etc. Thus, just as the Whig view of history is related to Victorian superiority, so are all long term evolutionary views related to a feeling of innate superiority.

These are some of my own impressions. They coincide with those of other historians of social thought. e.g.

The developmentalist/evolutionist model in anthropology in context: 'The idea of progress provided the intellectual stimulus for the view that human society began with a stage of savagery, advanced to barbarism, and then achieved the final threshold of civilized development. The developmentalist epoch corresponded in time with the emergence and expansion of industrialization in the West. Its decline came when the expansion of empires halted because there were no new lands and peoples to conquer. Europe as well as the United States, ended a frontier type of expansion and entered a period of consolidation.'

Expansion and retraction of Empire and anthropology: 'anthropological development...an institutional product of the West...Expansion of the West into the far corners of the globe made possible the internationalizing of anthropology as the science of mankind. Without Western penetration and conquest ethnologists could have developed their subject matter. Now ambiguities regarding goals and the divisiveness of the world at large are penetrating anthropology and eroding confidence in its scientific mission.'

One consequence/correlation.
Evolutionism related to optimism and radicalism: '"Evolutionism" whether in anthropology or in history is, strangely, a radical and optimistic view almost liberal, for it believes that things are towards something "better". Especially when coupled with the idea of the "Civilizing Process", it is likely to be most prevalent in periods of:
a) rapid economic growth
b) rapid technological growth
c) rapid political change
both in relation to the past of the society in question, and also in relation to other societies. Thus we see progressive evolutionism prevalent in Scotland (cf the Highlands) in the eighteenth century, in eighteenth century France, in later nineteenth century England (and later twentieth century America). There has to be an idea of movement, of direction, of destiny and mission, and an idea of oneself as the principle of civilization.

Thus, on the basis of the first two lectures, we may distinguish four major kinds of time, in which in a curious 'evolutionary' way, time unfolds.

FOR DIAGRAM SEE ORIGINAL

As far as western civilizations are concerned there have been three major changes:
from circular to serial
from serial to evolutionary
from evolutionary to structural

These are paradigm shifts.

What is clear is that we are not dealing here with merely isolated theories, but whole zeitgeists, spirit of an age, or in Kuhn's sense, paradigm shifts. The central paradigm of evolutionism in its various shapes and forms, for example, is described be Gellner thus:

'Evolutionism in a broad sense which incorporates both biologically and the historically inspired brands, and both continuity and jump stressing visions of upward development was more than a mere theory: it was a philosophy, a theodicy, a moral vision, a surrogate for religion. It saw in evolution and progress the key notions in which human life was to be interpreted, and human suffering justified; these notions did not merely explain, they conferred moral meaning and order on the world.' f this was true of the central phase, it was equally true of the other two.

This will be illustrated when we come to consider in more detail the reasons and manifestations and reactions to the shifts. But before we do that, having established the over all picture with its three major shifts, it is time to refine it a little, as follows:

(FOR DIAGRAMS UNDER 'MODEL' IN THE FIG. FOLLOWING SEE ORIGINAL)

Period Model Comments

to 1500 circular time
1500 1750 discovery of history/time/spatial time SHIFT 1
1750 1790 progressivism
1790 1830 reaction against progressivism
1830 1859 muted progress
1859 1890 high level evolutionism SHIFT 2
1890 1930 structuralism SHIFT 3
1930 1960 muted progress
1960 1980 high level evolutionism

Thus there seems to be a curious kind of repetitive re discovery of the models this has been noted by many in relation to the parallells between the 1770s and the 1870s. I found many similarities incidentally, between my own evolutionary book (Origins a significant word) with the theories of Freeman/Stubbs et al. These subtler nuances, for example, can be seen in the ebb and flow within periods, e.g.

The ebb and flow of progressive evolutionism in sociological thought.
After the progressivism of the Enlightenment comes the reaction against them Malthus, Paley et al. Then, commencing with writers born after the French Revolution, there is a heightening optimism thus works written 1830 1880, and particularly 1860 1880 are generally progressive and optimistic thus Comte/Mill/Spencer/Marx. But as in anthropology and history there is a reaction in the 1880s when the second generation Durkheim, Weber, Simmel etc. emerge they become anti progressive and functionalist. Always, of course, there are dissident voices, thus Le Play and De Tocqueville during the optimistic period (French particularly pessimistic the trauma of the Revolution deeper?), but the general climate is thus.

We shall also need to refine the causes for each shift in the following six lectures.

BIBLIOGRAPHY




(Part II Paper S3 Theory, Methods and Enquiry in Social Anthropology)

Classical Approaches to Social Theory Alan Macfarlane

The purpose of this course is to look at the foundations of modern social theory through an examination of social thought in its political, economic and ideological context since about 1700 A.D. Each lecture deals with a major theoretical paradigm and is illustrated by a case study of the life, methods and conclusions of one major thinker.

Overviews and general reading

Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought (2 vols: 1965).
E.E.Evans Pritchard, A History of Anthropological Theory (1981)
Anthony Giddens, Capitalism and modern social theory (1971)
Clifford Geertz, Works and Lives (1988)
Jack Goody, The Expansive Moment, (1995), esp. appendix 2.
Adam Kuper, Anthropologists and Anthropology (1975 & revised edn.)
Geoffrey Hawthorn, Enlightenment and Despair: A history of Sociology (1976)
Robert Lowie, History of Ethnological Theory (1937)
Alan Macfarlane, The Riddle of the Modern World: Of Liberty, Wealth and Equality (2000)
R.A.Nisbet, The Sociological Tradition (1967)
G.Stocking, Victorian Anthropology (1987)
Fred Voget, A History of Ethnology (1975)

[These books will be referred to below in detailed reading lists by short titles, eg. Aron, Currents or Hawthorn, Enlightenment]

There are useful articles on numerous theoretical topics (e.g. social structure) and individual thinkers (e.g. Montesquieu) in both the first and second edition of Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, a multi volume work available in Haddon. It is often worth starting with an overview from an article in this source. There are also helpful overview articles in The Macmillan Student's Guide to Sociology, ed. Michael Mann (1983).

My writings on most of the major figures I cover, as well as short video interviews with recent anthropologists, can be found on www.alanmacfarlane.com



Lecture 1a. A rough map of social theory: 1000 2000 A.D.

In order to place modern anthropology in its world context, a general overview of the major paradigms (world views) in social theory will be given: Circular, Enlightenment, Romantic, Evolutionary, Functionalist, Structuralist. Some of the reasons for change in paradigms and the nature of the questions and models behind each paradigm will be discussed.

E.E.Evans Pritchard, The Nuer (1965), chapter on space and time.
Thomas Kuhn, The structure of Scientific Revolutions (1975)
Gellner introduction to Evans Pritchard, History.
Macfarlane, Riddle, ch.1
Nisbet, Sociological Tradition, esp. chs. 1,2
Voget, History.

Lecture 1b. Liberty and the foundations of social theory to 1750

The shift from circular to lineal time and concept of progress. The emergence of comparative, holistic and structural analysis. The problem of political liberty.
Case study: Montesquieu.

Macfarlane, Riddle, chs. 2 4
Montesquieu, Persian Letters (1721: various editions)
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, (1748: various editions), esp. introduction and vol.I, book XI, XVII XX
Robert Shackleton, Montesquieu. A Critical Biography (1961)
Judith Shklar, Montesquieu (1987) a short book

Lecture 2. Wealth and Enlightenment: 1750 1790

The nature, causes and consequences of the Enlightenment and its relation to changes in eighteenth century Europe. The foundations of all the social sciences.
Case study: Adam Smith.

R.H.Campbell and A.S.Skinner, Adam Smith (1982)
Macfarlane, Riddle, chs.5 8
Ronald Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (1976)
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776; various editions), vol 1, Book I (chs 1 10), Book III.

Lecture 3. Equality and the Romantic Reaction: 1790 1840

The impact of the French, American, industrial and urban revolutions on social thought. The break down of the ancien regime and emergence of a new social order.
Case study: De Tocqueville.

Macfarlane, Riddle, chs. 9 12
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835, 1840, two volume edition trans. George Lawrence, Fontana, 1968), especially introduction by Max Lerner, and vol. I author's introduction and chs. 1 5; vol.2, part IV.
Alexis de Tocqueville, L'Ancien Regime (1856, various editions).
James Schleifer, The Making of Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America' (1980)
Larry Siedentop, Tocqueville (1994) a short book

Lecture 4. Capitalism and Evolution: 1840 1880

The impact of the industrial revolution, European imperial expansion and evolutionary biology on theoretical developments. Case study: Karl Marx.

John Burrow, Evolution and Society (1974)
Karl Marx, Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, ed. T.B.Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel (1961)
Karl Marx, Capital (1867; various editions), esp. vol.1, ch.1
Karl Marx, Pre capitalist Economic Formations, (part of 'Grundrisse' written in 1857 8; 1964 edn.), introduction by Hobsbawm and text.
David McLellan, Marx (1974) a short book




Lecture 5. Individualism and Functionalism: 1880 1910

The proliferation of industrial machinery, growth of cities, growing power of America and Asia and the implications of mass, secular, society.
Case study: Durkheim

Emile Durkheim, Suicide(1897; 1952), esp. book 2.
Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (1895: 1938)
E.E.Evans Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion (1965), ch.3
Steven Lukes, Emile Durkheim. His Life and Work (1973)
Frank Parkin, Durkheim (1992) a short book

Lecture 6. Rationality and Structuralism: 1890 1920

The implications of science, bureaucracy, militarism and nationalism. The role of ethics and ideology in a new, global world order.
Case study: Max Weber.

Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber. An Intellectual Portrait (1959)
Randall Collins, Weberian Social Theory (1986)
H.H.Gerth and C.Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1948), especially, Part I, Part III.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904 5; trans. Talcott Parsons, 1930.
Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (1924: 1947, ed. Talcott Parsons, part of the great 'Economy and Society' published in full in two volumes in 1968)

Lecture 7. The ethnographic turn: meetings with some classical ancestors, 1930-1970

The so-called Malinowskian revolution and development of participant-observation fieldwork, the turn away from large-scale frameworks to a study of the particular, within a functional and structural framework. Some interviews with classic figures of the period.

The books by Goody, Geertz and Kuper under ‘overviews’ ab ove.

Lecture 8. Modernity and Liberty: 1960 1995

The continuing themes of liberty, equality, wealth and meaning in a world divided between capitalism, communism and Islam. The escape from predation and the conditions of liberty.
Case study: Ernest Gellner.

Ernest Gellner, The Conditions of Liberty (1996)
Ernest Gellner, Anthropology and Politics: Revolutions in the Sacred Grove (1995), especially chs. 3,4,9,11
'Ernest Gellner Memorial Issue', Cambridge Anthropology, vol.19, no.2, 1996.7
John Hall and Ian Jarvie (eds), The Social Philosophy of Ernest Gellner, (1996), esp. parts 1 3, and 'Reply to Critics'.
Macfarlane, Riddle, chs. 13 14