The history of biology, psychology and anthropology: 1873 - 1930s
Gerald Sullivan, Professor of Anthropology
I propose to undertake a course of readings in the history of biology,
psychology and anthropology between 1873 and the late 1930s. It appears that I
shall have the time to do so during Summer II, 2008. As noted below, this
research is a continuation of an ongoing project.
Charles Darwin’s second great book, The Descent of Man and Selection
in Relation to Sex, effectively begins with the observation that not all evolution
can be accounted for by natural selection. Darwin had initially in mind certain
moral qualities. From these observations, he began to derive his second great
principle: sexual selection. But equally important, Darwin not only fully
introduced humanity into his published evolutionary thinking, but also did so in
ways that took notice of human variability, specifically human moral variability.
In the final paragraph of his proceeding work, On the Origin of Species by
Meand of Natural Selection of 1856, Darwin had merely suggested that humanity
too might fit within the broad and glorious vista opened up by evolutionary
thinking. His attack dog, Thomas Huxley, had furthered the argument by citing
evidences from the comparative anatomy of the great apes, including human
beings. But Darwin’s arguments concerning sexual selection, originally
published in 1871 and then revised and expanded in 1888, added a new if also
only partially worked out proposition.
It is well known that Darwin lacked a theory of genetics. William Bateson
did not publish on Gregor Mendel’s work until 1902, while a further synthesis of
Darwin and Mendel would not appear until Theodosius Dobzhansky published
Genetics and the Origin of Species in 1937.
It has perhaps been less often noted that Darwin’s work rarely attends to
processes of individual development, either in utero or post-partum. As it is now
clear that much of the human nervous system develops neonatally, this last point
should not by taken lightly. C. H. Waddington’s work on epigenesis did not
appear until the late 1930s and early 1940s. By that time prominent
psychoanalysts and psychologists--Freudians, neo-Freudians and Gestaltists-had already begun extensive work on the psychological development of human
beings.
Finally, Ruth Benedict did not publish her now oft forgotten notion of
cultural selection, itself an extension of Darwin’s ideas of natural and sexual
selection, until 1934. The transmission of culture from generation to generation
and the diffusion of cultural traits across a landscape both involve the dispersion
of acquired characteristics rather than any obvious changes in gene frequencies,
as more recent evolutionary theory might have it. As such, Benedict’s work,
rather than being solely materialist, retains a Lemarckian aspect of Darwinian
thought consequent with the opening arguments of The Descent of Man and
Selection in Relation to Sex.
Nonetheless, in that book, Darwin announced his contention that a wide
range of issues having to do broadly with morals, ethics and psychology could be
brought within the purview of an evolutionary biology. Unlike Edward Burnett
Tylor’s or Lewis Henry Morgan’s arguments, Darwin’s theories need not be taken
to imply a particular series of stages or even a single universal evolutionary
trajectory visible in hindsight. Perhaps for this reason, Franz Boas claimed in
1888 that Darwin’s work made an anthropology possible. Boas’ doctrine of
historical particularism set him at odds with not only Tylor and Morgan but also
with Georg Hegel and Emile Durkheim and eventually with all so-called
evolutionary theories except Darwin’s.
Thus, in the late nineteenth century the sciences developed an
conundrum. Biological ideas had opened up a great vista suggesting lines of
exploration in other, allied if not then entirely distinguishable disciplines. Biology
itself did not yet have the technical or theoretical capacity to explore the full
range of suggested issues within its own terms. Other disciplines, then emerging
out of the concatenation of natural philosophy, developed as general approaches
began to be distinguished one from the other.
Imperial and racist ideologies phrased in purported evolutionary schemes
further complicated matters. Those ideologies held that human differences
implied relative superiority and inferiority and hence the right of some to rule or, if
necessary, to suppress others. In such terms, variation could never be socially
neutral nor merely adaptive.
Much of the discussion emerging from the late nineteenth century
conundrum into the present era has been phrased as matters of mentality or
intelligence. This can be seen not only in the current debate about the existence
or non-existence of races as biological entities and any connection between such
races and so-called differences of collective IQ but also in the earlier debates
concerning the relative influence of nature and nurture, eugenics or the
differences between what were called primitive and civilized mentalities.
I do not propose to follow out lines of research already undertaken by
scholars such as Stephen J. Gould or Bradd Shore; nor will I pursue a study of
the evolutionary psychologists. Rather, I would read within the gap of the
conundrum described above down two interrelated lines.
I will ground my research in the philosophy of biology through a study of
Darwin (1873, 1888) and James Johnstone (1914).
Darwin’s third great book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals first published in 1873, suggests one line of research having to do with
biology, the organization of beings and the emotions. They key texts will be E. J.
Kempf (1918) and Kurt Goldstein (1939).
The close relations between biology, psychology and anthropology in the
early twentieth century, found, for example, in the work of Boas (1911) , A. A.
Goldenweiser (1933) and W. H. R. Rivers (1920, 1922, 1926), suggests a
second line of research having to do with the unity of species and the diversity of
development; this latter line of research bears in mind the connection often made
in the psychology of the period between primitives, women, children and the
insane, especially those diagnosed with dementia praecox (now known as
schizophrenia). The key texts will be Rivers (1920, 1922, 1926), Frederic Bartlett
(1923) and Ernst Kretschmer (1925).
This work is part of a broader project I began as an extension of my
doctoral work in preparation for turning my thesis into my second book. To date
these researches have primarily drawn me towards the intersection of
psychology and anthropology. It has become apparent to me, despite a general
consensus to the contrary, that the psychologists and anthropologists whose
work has formed the center of my researches were all concerned with biology
and biological issues. It will likely prove, however, inadequate to simply make
assertions. Rather I have to be able to show in an opening chapter what sort of
biological ideas these psychologists and anthropologists could and did work with;
I have recently begun this work, focusing initially on C. H. Waddington’s notion of
epigenesis. The proposed research would take my studies back considerably
further than the 1930s.
In addition to the book and the public lecture at the College, I anticipate
presenting conference papers to the Cheiron, the American Historical
Association, the American Anthropological Association and the History of
Science Society. I anticipate publishing essays in a variety of journals
associated with these societies.
Research Plan
Unfortunately my teaching responsibilities during the summer of 2008 will
likely mean that I will be busy through Summer I. My studies will, therefore, likely
be limited to Summer II and the weeks on either side thereof. The first three
weeks of study should take me from Darwin to Goldstein.
My reading will begin with Darwin’s The Descent of Man and Selection in
Relation to Sex. The second edition of 1888 is much the more readily available.
It differs from the first edition in only modest ways. Darwin added chapter four,
itself an important extension of his discussion of moral differences not wholly
explainable through natural selection. I have already both read and taught much
of this volume; this exploration will largely serve as a review with an eye towards
the orientation of subsequent work. I will focus on Darwin’s exposition of morals,
especially his arguments concerning human awareness of the opinions of others.
Next, I will turn to Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals. While this volume will be entirely new to me, I expect to find in it a
continuation of Darwin’s concern with morals as they relate to emotions and
hence to biological responses to a variety of external stimuli. This will lay the
groundwork for reading of Kempf (1918) and Goldstein (1939).
Before turning to these later authors, however, I will want to consolidate
my understanding of the biological sciences of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries and the philosophical issues pertinent thereto by reading
Johnstone (1914).
Against this background, I will examine Kempf’s (1918) attempt to bring
biology and psychology together. Elsewhere, Kempf connected the ideas of
emotion and bodily motion, a position reminiscent in some ways to that of
Nietzsche. As human beings often do not consciously control many of their
bodily motions, Kempf turned to the autonomic nervous system as part of a study
of the organization and development of personality. While I know Kempf’s work
on dementia praecox, this will be my first reading of his major work.
Similarly, I have yet to read the next generation’s major attempt at a
synthesis of biological and psychology: Goldstein’s (1939) The Organism. With
Paul Schilder and Eugène Minkowski, Goldstein was perhaps the leading
psychiatrist of the era. Building on the work of the Gestaltists, Goldstein’s
studies of schizophrenics combined not only therapeutic observations but also
close attention to the clues to the systemic operations of the body provided by
the examination of pathologies.
In this respect Goldstein provides a transition to Rivers (esp. 1920), on the
one hand, and to Kretschmer (1925), on the other. Both of these scholars
concerned themselves with the biological bases of psycho-neuroses.
Kretschmer advanced a theory of body types and their differential propensities
towards specific psychoses. Rivers, in addition to being a medical doctor
experienced with the victims of shell shock, was also one of the founding fathers
of anthropological field research. Rivers’ work directly influenced that of Bartlett
(1923), director of the psychological laboratory at Cambridge and mentor of
Gregory Bateson, as well as paralleled that of Boas and Boas’ now unfortunately
forgotten student A. A. Goldenweiser.
Boas and his students have often been taken to reject biological ideas
because of Boas’ implacable opposition to both racism and universal theories of
cultural evolution. I will be rereading The Mind of Primitive Man. Further, I will
read Goldenweiser’s (1933:35-58) instructive essay applying the idea of
convergent evolution to social forms.
I expect my reading from Rivers to Goldenweiser to take three to four
weeks.
Proposed Bibliography:
Bartlett, Frederic C. (1923) Psychology and Primitive Culture. Cambridge; The
University Press.
Boas, Franz (1911) The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: The Macmillan
Company.
Darwin, Charles (1873) The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
New York: D. Appleton.
(1888) The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2nd. Ed. New
York: D.
Appleton and company.
Goldenweiser, A. A. (1933) History, Psychology, and Culture. New York: A. A.
Knopf.
Goldstein, Kurt (1939) The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived
from
Pathological Data in Man. New York: American Book Company.
Johnstone, James (1914) The Philosophy of Biology. Cambridge: The University
Press.
Kempf, Edward J (1918) The Autonomic Function and the Personality. New York:
The Nervous
and Mental Disease Publishing Co.
Kretschmer, Ernst (1925) Physique and Character: An Investigation of the Nature
and
Constitution and the Theory of Temperament. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Rivers, W. H. R.(1920) Instinct and the Unconscious: A Contribution to a
Biological Theory of
the Psycho-neurosis. Cambridge: The University Press.
(1922) History and Ethnology. New York: The Macmillan Co.
(1926) Psychology and Ethnology. New York: Harcourt, Brace.