Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology / Edition 2

by Lawrence A. Kuznar

Overview

A strong advocate for anthropology as a science, Lawrence Kuznar reviews the recent challenges to this ideology from creationists and "scientific" racists on one side and postmodernists, marxists and feminists on the other. Moreover, Kuznar provides a brief review of anthropology as a science, summarizes major theoretical works in anthropology and other fields on the science/humanism debate, and offers several important case examples from cultural anthropology and archaeology showing science in action. An interesting, provocative book for anthropologists and ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate classes in theory and method.

Author Biography: Indiana University - Purdue, Fort Wayne

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780759111080
Publisher:	AltaMira Press
Publication date:	09/11/2008
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Indiana University - Purdue, Fort Wayne

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 1. Introduction Chapter 2 2. Anthropological Science Chapter 3 3. Science: problems with Progress Chapter 4 4. Anthropological Science: Two Examples Part 5 II Chapter 6 5. Traditionalist Critiques of Anthropological Science Chapter 7 6. The Postmodern Vanguard: Non-Traditional Critics of Science Chapter 8 7. Elevating the Other Chapter 9 8. The Mutable Past: Postmodern Archaeology Part 10 III Chapter 11 9. Strange Bedfellows: Comparison of Challenges to Scientific Anthropology Chapter 12 10. Crusading Anthropology: The Case Against Chapter 13 11. Where Do We Go from Here? Chapter 14 References

What People are Saying About This

Marvin Harris

A timely, thoughtful and civil intervention in the disputes that dominate our fractious discipline.

Editorial Reviews

Postmodernists and moralists will not like this book, but they will have difficulty dismissing Kuznar's critique. This books brings together a historical survey with contemporary arguments about science, demonstrating that most of the current anti-science arguments have been answered at length by philosophers of science.

Roy D'Andrade

Kuznar makes a strident plea for putting some semblance of science back into anthropology….An obvious acquisition for college and university libraries where there are broad programs in humanities and the sciences.

CHOICE

A timely, thoughtful and civil intervention in the disputes that dominate our fractious discipline.

Marvin Harris

Kuznar makes a strident plea for putting some semblance of science back into anthropology….An obvious acquisition for college and university libraries where there are broad programs in humanities and the sciences.

Choice

What makes this book so useful for students and teachers of undergraduate and graduate classes on anthropological research…is that it is a careful, reasoned attempt to put something back, after the certainties have been removed from under students' feet.

Critique Of Anthropology