The historical development of the work of anthropologists seems to single out clearly a domain of knowledge that heretofore has not been treated by any other science.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If there were a science of human beings it would be anthropology that aims at understanding the totality of experience through structural context.
Modern scientific knowledge appeared piecemeal. Historians wrote about human history; physicists tackled the material world; and biologists studied the world of living organisms. But there were few links between these disciplines, as researchers focused on getting the details right.
I should add that it is open to debate whether what we call the writing of history these days is truly scientific.
After all, science is essentially international, and it is only through lack of the historical sense that national qualities have been attributed to it.
I meant exactly what I said: that we are saddled with a culture that hasn't advanced as far as science.
While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
Younger anthropologists have the notion that anthropology is too diverse. The number of things done under the name of anthropology is just infinite; you can do anything and call it anthropology.
Anthropology never has had a distinct subject matter, and because it doesn't have a real method, there's a great deal of anxiety over what it is.
Cultural anthropology is more and more rapidly getting to realize itself as a strictly historical science.
Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view.