Comments on: Robert Lowie just destroyed A.R. Radcliffe-Brown in one must-see letter

By: jsizek

jsizek — Thu, 31 Aug 2017 21:47:10 +0000

If you want to go see Lowie, he’s buried in El Cerrito (about 3 miles from Berkeley) next to Kroeber.

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 04:21:43 +0000

Nice quote. But there is serious danger of anachronism. Anthropology will not long survive if the only logic anthropologists know is the Aristotlean/Medieval Scholastic form to which Lowie was likely referring.

By: Daniel Rosenblatt

Daniel Rosenblatt — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 12:30:53 +0000

My favorite:

Lowie:

I try to saturate myself with those facts that attract me and then get what enlightenment I
can concerning them. I do not import the principles of mechanics or of any other extraneous
discipline, but merely follow the rules of logic that characte1ize all scholarly endeavor, adapting
them to the specific requirements of the problem.

You enunciate universal laws, which seem to me blatant bombast

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 04:08:59 +0000

Thanks, Rex. Have downloaded the PDF and added it to my reading stack. Based on your introduction you might find the following book interesting: Embracing Complexity Strategic Perspectives for an Age of Turbulence Jean G. Boulton, Peter M. Allen, and Cliff Bowman. It is by physicists turned management consultants, but it my eye it represents one of the best quick summaries of complexity science, which attempts to address many of the issues Lowe raises, the importance of history and rejection of mechanical, monocausal explanations, in particular. Thanks, again.

By: Rex

Rex — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 02:09:31 +0000

Culture and Ethnology: /2013/10/26/culture-and-ethnology/

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 01:20:29 +0000

Rex, which of Lowie’s longer works would you recommend as exemplifying his approach versus Radcliffe-Brown’s?