Fraz Boas and his Concept of History (III)

It is said that Boas' achievements are full of paradoxes. In order to understand his theories consistently, we must examine them in the context of his whole life-setting. We can divide his scientific career, according to his own words, into three stages as follows : (A) Up to 1895: when he was under the influence of German and other European anthropologists. (B) 1895-1910: period of historical analysis of dissemination and acculturation based on the regional survey of American aborigines. (C) 1910-1942: when ‘problems of cultural dynamics, of integration of culture and of the interaction between individual and society' were studied. Points of the issue dealt with are : (1) that Boas’ anthropological studies are based on his inquiry into the ‘laws of general history of mankind’, which would provide as heuristic idea for his positivistic survey of primitive people. (2) The principle of historical diffusion, commonly ascribed to Boas, is not a speculative dogma to be set against the general laws, but it means a critical and analytical method whereby the application of this principle is confined to the continuous area alone in which the positivistic approach is possible. Thus it justifies the comparability of cultural elements. (3) What has been said above helps understand his concept of 'history'. He often proposes to use the ‘historical method’ which is based not on generalities but on individual cases. It deals with the time sequences of the individual cultural phenomena, ask'ng, ‘how they came into being’. But, on the other hand, Boas often speaks of ‘history’ in the singular in contrast to the plural ‘histories’. It means ‘the general history of culture’, which involves in itself all particular ‘histories’. But it would mean nothing unless we know ‘how the culture of each group of man came to be what it is’. (4) Boas, however, does not acknowledge the general law of unilinear development of culture which is not based on the study of individual historical phenomena. His own concept of the general law demands the investigation of the tolality of cultural phenomena as reflected in the individual cultures. It will work as a heuristic idea for the study of dynamic integration of cultural reality. His social-psychological study of the primitive mind and cultural dynamics is, therefore, oriented by this theoretical conception of general history. To sum up, it is by connecting his historical researches with his psychological and theoretical studies that we can understand him consistently