Reyna, Stephen.- Theory Counts

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2001 1: 9Anthropological TheoryStephen P. Reyna

confrontational stanceTheory counts: (Discounting) discourse to the contrary by adopting a

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Anthropological Theory

Copyright SAGE PublicationsLondon, Thousand Oaks, CA

and New DelhiVol 1(1): 929

[1463-4996(200103)1:1;929;015920]

9

Theory counts(Discounting) discourse to the contrary byadopting a confrontational stance

Stephen P. ReynaUniversity of New Hampshire

Abstract

This article argues the virtues of a particular research methodology, the

confrontational stance, for making theory count by helping it to formulate

approximate truths of some rigor. Argument proceeds by first showing how a

particular anthropological tradition, social anthropology, achieved success by

haphazardly adopting such a stance; and then by suggesting certain requirements

needed to systematically adopt such a stance.

Key Wordsapproximate truth research methodology social anthropology validation

Tiresias. . . a blind prophet, usually said to have been blinded because he saw Athenabathing, and then to have been awarded the gift of prophecy . . . (Random HouseDictionary, 1967)

This article begins with an assessment of the state of current anthropology in order to

do something about it. Lvi-Strauss observed that anthropology began as a Rousseaueanproject because J.-J. Rousseau had once remarked, . . . the whole world is covered withnations of which we know only the names (in Lvi-Strauss, 1976: 30). So, to acquirefurther knowledge, he recommended that dauntless folk be sent . . . traveling in orderto inform their compatriots by observing . . . Let us suppose that these new Herculeses. . . then wrote the natural, moral, and poli tical history of what they had seen; we our-selves would see a new world come from their pens . . . (Lvi-Strauss, 1976: 30). Nowthe observers who became the new Herculeses were the anthropologists, and as a resultof their odysseys, they created a new world of theory about humanity.

In the 19th century the likes of E.B. Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan constructed uni-linear evolutionary theories that sought to account for the universals of human culture.Radcliffe-Brown offered his view of social anthropology in the 1930s which became aBritish social anthropological canon in the first half of the 20th century; a canon whosefirst premise was that social anthropology was . . . the theoretical natural science of

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human society . . . (Radcliffe-Brown, 1965/1940: 188, 189). This was a deft piece ofintellectual imperialism. Sociology, political science, and economics as they studiedparticular types of societies, or different aspects of particular societies, smaller realitiesin the larger whole were reduced to sub-disciplines within anthropology, as they well

should be. At roughly the same time, largely at Columbia University, Franz Boas andhis associates were devising an even vaster anthropology which would be the science ofman in all aspects, biological as well as cultural (Kroeber, 1963/1923: 1). Thus, anthro-pology was the most comprehensive discipline investigating humanity in either its 19thcentury form or its two variants in the first half of the 20th century. It was a vast projectsending new Herculeses everywhere to erect a human science and in science: theorycounts! That was then; what can be said of the anthropological present?

Sherry Ortner, writing on the subject of anthropological theory since the 1960s,determined that it had become a thing of shreds and patches (Ortner, 1984: 126).Judgements in the 1990s continued Ortners concern. Keith Hart, in 1990, castigatedanthropology as alienated . . . and lacking any vision (in Firth, 1992: 208). Joel Kahn(1990: 230) described it in a state of methodological and epistemological crisis. Debatein the US pertains to whether the discipline is self destructing (Knauft, 1996: 1).Sahlins (1995: 14) believes that Culture . . . is in the twilight of its career, and anthro-pology with it. Geertz agrees, prophesying that the discipline will probably disappearin about 50 years (in Handler, 1991: 612). Such opinions, according to Knauft (1996:296), are widely shared. The point of the preceding is that significant thinkers ques-tion the vision, to use Harts term, of anthropology. It is as if the discipline has gonefrom a confederacy of new Herculeses to one of blind Tiresiases, sightless seers.

Why does anthropology appear to be in such a situation?There are a number ofanswers to this question. Certainly, the investment preferences of current neo-liberalismhurt anthropology. Such preferences privilege financing of penal institutions at theexpense of those in education. Prisons are growing everywhere in the US, while publicuniversities are declining or stagnating. This explains in some measure why perhaps halfof those who have received PhDs in anthropology in the US since the early 1970s havenot been able to secure permanent positions in colleges or universities (Roseberry, 1996).So great a loss of intellectual resources over three decades unquestionably clouds anthro-pologys vision. But there is another problem.

Thisproblem is, that for anumber of reasons, astronganti-sciencefaction hasariseninanthropology.Thisfaction, in thewordsofStevenTyler (1987), findssciencedegradedand archaic. It insistsupon thick description, or ethnography (Geertz, 1973), in placeof science.Somein thetraditionconsider themselvesexperimentalists whowant totradein thescholarly treatise. . . for interviews, conversations, and biographical portraitsin amanner moreevocativeof journalists (Marcus,1993:1).Let usbecrystal clear about whatis being proposed here. The blind Tiresiases will trade in scientific scholarship for inter-views. Theory no longer countsin such an anthropological discourse.1

How does one confront such discourse?One strategy is to bracket it in the sense of

the Greek sceptics when they put something in epoche. When you place a discourse inepoche, you suspend judgement on it; that is, you bracket it and get on with other busi-ness. I f I bracket (war) I set speech of war aside, and get on with talking about peace. I fthe Tiresiases discount theory, we shall discount without rancor, with dispatch their(discounting) to confront the chore of helping to make theory count.

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How can one do this?Albert Einstein once remarked that a decisive event in sciencewas that of the confrontation of theory and facts (Einstein, 1970: 29). Further, for along time many scientists have been fully aware that there are difficulties inherent ingrasping the nature of this confrontation (Lakatos, 1970: 113). This article contends

that a way of making theory count can be had if anthropologists examine what isinvolved in confrontation, and then take a confrontational stance.

Bertrand Russell, writing in Unpopular Essays, pointed a way to understanding con-frontation when he said, But if philosophy is to serve a positive purpose, it must notteach skepticism, for while the dogmatist is harmful, the skeptic is useless (Russell, 1951:27). Dogmatism was harmful, according to Russell, because it was an absolutist posturethat insisted there was Absolute Truth, when it was uncertain whether such truths exist.Skepticism was useless because it, too, was an absolutist position, one whose prac-titioners produced a lack of knowledge, an Absolute Ignorance. The unilinear evolu-tionists, like Morgan, with his insistence upon the absolute truth of one line of evolutionfrom savagery to civilization, are an example of Russells dogmatism. Postmodernists,like Lyotard (1984), with his skepticism towards all metanarratives, exemplifies Russellsskepticism. What Russell was suggesting was that philosophy, here understood as anepistemological stance, could have a positive purpose if it steered a course between theScylla of dogmatism and the Charybdis of skepticism.

I argue in this article that a confrontational stance is just such a philosophy and willutilize the social anthropologists encounter with unilinear evolutionary theory to illus-trate why. Argument is developed over four sections. The first section introduces certain

basics of confrontation. The second section presents the social anthropologists versionof it. The third section documents the social anthropologists confrontation with uni-linear evolutionary theory. The fourth section explains how the formulation of validationhistories is vital when taking a confrontational stance, and provides insight as to how tomake such histories. Finally, the conclusion, surveying the analysis of the preceding sec-tions, argues that when confrontational stances establish validation histories bearingupon theoretical propositions, they create more rigorous approximate truths of socialreality, a rigor necessary for making theory count.

THE CONFRONTATIONAL STANCEDifferent formsof scientific practice may tend toward oneof two limitswhere, asoneapproachesthem, they (thepractices) becomelessand lessscientific. One limit is thatof pure theory. Here, practitionersutterly ignore observation while propounding non-validated generalizations. The other limit is that of pure observation. Here, prac-titioners only perform observation, while formulating no generalizations. The formerlimit might be called Panglossian, because Dr Panglosssdiscourse in Candidewas ababble of theoretical absurditiesunconstrained by reality. Thelatter limit might besaidto beBaconian because many commentators thought that Sir Francis, like Detective

Webb in Dragnet, fancied just the facts. A science away from these extremesoperatesunder the principle that every generalization should have its set of validating obser-vationsand every set of observationsshould havetheir generalizations. Such a scienceis confrontational, confronting generalization with observation, and observation withgeneralization.

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It is important to recognize what is confronting what. The confrontation in the con-frontational stance is not directly between one group of thinkers jawing with anothergroup concerning whose views are truer, although this can occur. It is a confrontationbetween a particular theoretical proposition, or sets of such propositions, and reality.

Theoretical propositions are generalizations in which there are at least two concepts andat least one relationship between these concepts. Such propositions may be one of threetypes. Empirical generalizations are propositions that are relatively low in generality andabstraction, and are arrived at through observation. Theories are propositions with enor-mous generality and high abstraction arrived at through a formal or informal logical pro-cedure. Hypotheses are propositions deduced from theories which are lower in generalityand abstraction than the theory from which they derive.3 Scientists formulate theorywhenever they construct any of these three types of propositions.

Empirical statements are needed to allow theoretical propositions to confront reality.Theoretical propositions assert uniformities of relationship in reality. Empirical state-ments describe how to sense the posited reality because they contain information con-cerning what sensations of reality correspond to which concepts in the theoreticalpropositions. For example, Emile Durkheim invented in Suicide(1897) the theoreticalproposition that deviance varied inversely with social integration. Empirical statementsapplicable to this theory are: Suicide is a form of deviance, Catholicism and Protes-tantism are forms of social integration, and inverse relationships are observed whensomething goes up when something else goes down.

Confrontation is based upon having showdowns.4 The image that this word mayevoke is of the moment of truth at the end of a cowboy movie when the good guy and

the bad guy test each other to discover who shoots best. I use the term in a slightly differ-ent sense. A showdown is certainly a moment of truth involving a test; but what is beingtested is whether what is observed of reality is what has been imagined of it. Scientistsmake observations that produce sensory information concerning whether what is assertedin theory to be is sensedin reality to be. Thus, the showdown in the confrontationalstance is between imagination and perception of reality, and concerns whether thesensory information of reality, the facts, is the sensory information that particularempirical statements of particular theoretical propositions imagined would be thesensory information of that reality.

Personsadopting aconfrontational stancewill beinvolved in two related practicesthose of observation and validation. Observation concerns the sensing of being. It isfocusing upon apatch of reality with aparticular sense, i.e. vision, and taking asnap-shot of it, i.e.ofallowingthat sensetomakeaneurological recordof thereality.Theneuro-logical record is the observation. Validation concerns the production of a particularknowledgeabout observation. Either what theoriesassert will beobserved isobserved, inwhichcasethepropositionsarevalidated (for thoseobservations); or what theyassert willbeobserved isnot observed, in which casethey arefalsified. Repeated confrontation ofcontendingtheoriesconcerningsomerealitywith that realityresultsinvalidationhistories

which contain information concerning how well contendingpropositionsdo when con-frontingreality. Validationhistoriesprovidethebasisfor assertionsof approximatetruth(Miller,1987).ThisisnotTheTruth,but truer truthamonggalaxiesof contendingtruthsgiven aparticular validation history. Confrontational showdownsaremomentsof truthbecauseat theend of them you know whohasthetruer truth.


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The actual techniques that sciences use when they make their confrontations are theirobservational and validational toolkits. Some might deride the notion of a toolkit as anunimportant concept of interest only to more technical plebs. My judgement is preciselythe reverse. More approximately, true knowledge depends upon more complete and

accurate observation and validation, which is what toolkits are all about. Let us investi-gate something of the confrontational toolkits with which the unilinear anthropologistsand social anthropologists practiced their anthropologies.

FULL-FLAVOURED OBSERVATION

William James tells us that when he asked Sir James Frazer about natives he hadknown, Frazer exclaimed, But heaven forbid! (in Jarvie, 1969: 2).

The anthropologist must relinquish his comfortable position in the long chair . . .He must go out into the villages, and see the natives at work in gardens, on the beach,

in the jungle, must sail with them . . . and observe them in fishing, trading, and cer-monial . . . Information must come to him full flavoured from his own observationsof native li fe . . . (Malinowski, 1954/1926: 14647).

Theunilinear evolutionists confrontational toolkit wasbased on circuitousand indirectobservation.5 Certainly, nobody had the slightest intention of directly observing thosebeing investigated, as theabovequotation concerning Frazer makesclear. Rather, theywould practisethecomparativemethod. Thebasic proceduresof thiswereto first readaccountsof thesavages bymissionaries, soldiers, and colonial administratorstodiscover

survivals, elementsof low culturethat survived in higher culture. Oncethesehad beenidentified, the information they supposedly borewould betreated aspremisesin syllo-gisms from which other aspects of primitive culture would be inferred. Of course,soldiers, and thelike, weregullibleand biased so that theaccuracy of thepremiseswhichformed the basis of their deductionswas unknown. This being the case, Malinowski(1944: 26)declaredthat theshortcomings ofunilinear evolutionary theoryresultedfrominsufficient attention to . . . reality. All in all, theunilinear evolutionary theorists com-parativemethod madetheobservational part of their confrontational toolkit conjectural.

The social anthropologists antidote for neglecting reality, as the above quotation

from Malinowski underscores, was to get out of the long chair to make full flavouredobservations.6 This included a number of observational procedures championed byMalinowski in the first chapter of Argonauts of the Western Pacific(1922) that becamethe social anthropologists standard ethnographic toolkit and was the observational basisof their confrontational stance.7

A.C. Haddon and W.H.R. Rivers had actually developed the essentials of the socialanthropological observational toolkit following the Torres Straits expedition at the turnof the century. Haddon introduced the notion that the preferred type of research shouldbe based upon fieldwork (Young, 1988: 4). Rivers (1900) developed the genealogical

method during the Torres Straits Expedition. The unilinear evolutionists had made itclear that savages and barbarians lived with their relatives. This indicated who neededto be directly observed. But the evolutionists, with their aversion to actually meetingwith the object of their study, could only suggest utilization of the comparative methodto make these observations.

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The genealogical method was the first technique explicitly developed for directlyobserving relatives. It was to be utilized in conjunction with census and settlement plansof localities, and required the collection of the vital statistics, kinship ties, and statusesconcerning rights and responsibilities, especially as these referred to the inheritance of

property and succession to office for individuals in the census of a particular locality.Thus, it forced anthropologists to see and hear actualities of primitive actors, andthereby gave its users an observational advantage over unilinear evolutionists.

Notes and Queries on Anthropology, used since the 1870s as a handbook of anthropo-logical method, was revised in 1912. Rivers contributed an article to the new, fourthedition, General Account of Method. This was, perhaps, the first presentation of par-ticipant observation. A guiding principle offered in this article was that, the abstractshould always be approached through the concrete (Rivers, 1912: 115). The concretewas actual observation of discourse and practice. The methodological point argued hereis that more abstract generalizations need to be validated by concrete observation. Ofcourse, the term concrete has its ambiguities, so it is appropriate to probe further toexplore in greater detail what it meant.

Rivers was interested in problems of the observation of discourse. He was especiallyconcerned not to conflate the cultural categories of native discourse with those of theobserver. This meant that, as with practice, discourse was to be actually experienced sothat native terms must be used to designate the meaning of this discourse, whereverthere is the slightest chance of a difference of category. Furthermore, the greatestcaution must be used in obtaining information by means of direct questions, since it isprobable that such questions will inevitably suggest some civilized category (Rivers,

1912: 110111). If ethnographers were to know what native terms corresponded towhat sensed discourse, then they had to move in with the natives to acquire as com-pletely as possible their languages (Rivers, 1912: 109), and through interaction in theirlives, to hear how these categories were actually used in ordinary discourse. This, ofcourse, meant participant observation.

How did Malinowski fit into the current of Riverss observational innovations?Hewent with the flow. His brief treatise on fieldwork in the first chapter of Argonautsaddedadditional techniques for directly observing people in communities that complementedRiverss genealogical method, but these were amplifications of Riverss intention of having

anthropologists experience what those they observed experienced; for, as Malinowskisaid, the . . . goal is . . . to grasp the natives point of view, . . . to realizehisvision of hisworld (Rivers, 1912: 25, emphasis in the original).

The Rivers/Malinowski approach to observation came to dominate social anthro-pology after 1922. Consequently, no more comparative method, no relying upon someamateurs observations and fractured logics based upon those observations. As Mali-nowski declared at the beginning of this section, long chairs were out and tents werein, as everybody rushed tobe therewith the natives. So, Frazers refusal to meet the nativeswas replaced by Malinowskis full-flavoured observation; or as he put it, I saw them

through their eyes . . . (Malinowski, 1989: 163).Full-flavoured observation sharpened the anthropologists observational toolkit,strengthening their ability to be confrontational. The significance of this needs to berecognized. Microscopes were revolutionary to the biologists toolkits because they revealnew, microscopicrealities. Full-flavoured observationdid thesamein social and cultural


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realms. Theory could be confronted with greater and more detailed observation. Greaterand more detailed observation could inform theory. Jarvie (1969: 2) has judged that theswitch to full-flavoured observation was a revolution that social anthropology intro-duced to social and cultural thought. I agree. It is time to investigate how this enhanced

power of confrontation was used against unilinear evolutionary theory.

CONFRONTING UNILINEAR EVOLUTION

. . . one feels also a moral separation from the anthropologists of last century or atleast I do. Their reconstructions were not only conjectural but evaluatory. . . . theybelieved above all in progress, the kind of material, political, social, and philosophi-cal changes which were taking place in Victorian England. . . . consequently theexplanations of social institutions they put forward amount . . . to little more thanhypothetical scales of progress, at one end of which were placed forms of institutionsor beliefs as they were in 19th-century Europe and America, while at the other endwere placed their antitheses . . . (Evans-Pritchard, 1962: 41).

The social anthropologists, as the preceding quotation from Evans-Pritchard makes clear,had reservations concerning the unilinear evolutionists theories, reservations thatextended into moral domains. Consequently, they sought to challenge these theorieswhenever possible. They did not do so by explicitly applying validation procedures,though I hope to show in the next few pages that this is implicitly exactly what they did.The heart of unilinear evolutionary theory, as expressed by Tylor, was the insistence thatcultureoccurred in different higher and lower grades with it understood that primi-

tives had failed to make the grade (Tylor, 1958/1871: vol. 1: 1). They did not do sobecause they were devoid of reason, the key determinant of sociocultural evolution.Comte (1896: 667) expressed this view as follows, It is only through more and moremarked influence of reason over the general conduct of man and of society that thegeneral march of our race has attained . . . regulari ty . . .. Reason organized the generalmarch and, as Spencer put it, the inferior races (Spencer, 1883: vol. 1: 62) missed theirmarching orders because they were subject to the uncontrolled following of immediatedesires (Spencer, 1883: vol. 1: 71), as they lacked adequate mental powers (Spencer,1883: vol. 1: 119). Social anthropologists, using their full-flavoured toolkit, confronted

the truth of such propositions. Below, different examples of such confrontations areexplored. Let us begin with kinship, as this was perhaps where the social anthropologistsenjoyed their finest hour.

Kinship

The social anthropologists seemed to devote exclusive attention to kinship and thesubjects directly related to it (Murdock, 1951: 466). There was a rationale guiding thisinfatuation with kinship. The unilinear evolutionists, most importantly Morgan (1870;1877), discovered that savages and barbarians organized themselves for the most part

into systems of consanguinity and affinity. He, and other unilineal evolutionary theor-ists, then, offered theoretical propositions concerning these systems, propositions towhich thesocial anthropologiststook exception. Fortesbelieved that enough evidencehadbeen collectedbythe1950storelegate. . . to thelimboof historical curiosities such uni-linear evolutionary chestnuts as . . . the Matriarchal Controversy; the pseudo-historical

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and pseudo-psychological theories of classificatory kinship, incest, totemic descent andso forth . . . (Fortes, 1957: 158).

The thrust of the arguments in these works was that efforts to confront particular uni-linear explanations about kinship with evidence led to their falsification. Morgan, for

example, posited an evolutionary sequence for the family that started with promiscu-ous intercourse (Morgan, 1877: 505). Try as they might, the old social anthropologistsnever observed a single instance of this. Perhaps the classic confrontation was betweenHenri Junod and Radcliffe-Brown over how to explain a nephews relationship to hismaternal uncle in certain populations.

Junod, a missionary turned ethnographer of the Thonga in southern Africa, discov-ered what he believed was a most curious aspect of Thonga society (Junod, 1962/1913:253). Generally, throughout Africa, juniors treat their elders with respect. The curiositywas that, among the Thonga, younger sisters sons treated their elder maternal uncleswith a hearty disrespect. For example, a nephew who arrived when food had just beenprepared was allowed to gobble it down, leaving nothing for his maternal uncle. Junodexplained this in terms of unilinear evolutionary theory, asserting that it was a survivalof a matriarchal stage.

Radcliffe-Brown, in TheMothersBrother in South Africa (1924) ashewasaboutto offer hisown solution to thiscuriosity, and speaking of theory-building in general,said it was easy enough to invent hypotheses but difficult when we set out to verifythem (Radcliffe-Brown, 1965: 21) was being confrontational and using the termverify aswehavebeen using validate. Hewassaying that hewould confront whetherwhat Junods theory stateswilloccur with observations to see whether it actually does

occur. Radcliffe-Brown then proceeded to show that crucial aspects of the mothersbrothers (MBs) behaviour towards the sisters son (ZS) were unaccounted for in thematriarchal survival theory (Radcliffe-Brown, 1965: 24, 25). He pointed out that inmore matriarchal societies the MB has considerable authority within the lineageorganization and is usually accorded respect. Thismeans, if the MB/ZS relationship isa survival of an earlier matriarchal stage, that the ZS should show respect to hisMB.But asalready observed, hedoesnot. What the theory imaginesshould occur, respectof ZS for MB, does not occur. So, Junods theory appears falsified when confrontedwith this evidence.

Radcliffe-Brown, then, offers an alternative explanation based on a principle of theequivalence of brothers (Radcliffe-Brown, 1965: 2930). This principle was a gener-alization about how particular relatives are treated. His explanation can be summarizedas follows:

1 People in kin-based societies group their kin into cultural categories towards whom,and from whom, particular types of behaviour are assigned.

2 This categorization is based upon analogies between kin within the nuclear familyand more distant relatives.

This leads us to the principle of the equivalence of siblings, which is that:

3 Siblings of parents are placed in the same category as parents.4 Therefore, a MB is treated like a mother.


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5 A mother is treated in a free and easy, indulgent manner.6 Therefore, a MB should be treated in the same manner.

The two theories may now be compared. What is supposed to occur in Junods theory

does not, while what is supposed to occur in Radcliffe-Browns theory does. Radcliffe-Browns theory, when confronted with the evidence, passed the confrontation. Junodsflunked it. Consequently, given this validation history, Radcliffe-Browns theory isapproximately truer than Junods. Let us now turn to economics.

Economics

Unilinear evolutionary theorists insisted that savage economies were wretched. Morgan,speaking of native Americans, tied the weakness in their economies to the absence of amental trait that allowed a race to become civilized, for he said, The great passion[for economic gain] of civilized man . . . never roused the Indian mind. It was doubt-less the great reason for his continuance in the hunter state, for the desire for gain is oneof the earliest manifestations of the progressive mind. It . . . has civilized our race(Morgan, 1851: 139). Essentially what was being said here was that the great reasonsavages had pathetic economies, was that they were not racially driven to gain. Spencertied this lack of passion to their impulsiveness. If the inferior races were impulsive,as Spencer insisted they were, then they were lazy, because as Spencer put it referringto a group in India they will half starve rather than work . . . (Spencer, 1883: vol. 1:66). The outrage of laziness was reported by colonial bureaucrats concerned to get thecolonized to work for their colonizers. For example, the colonial administration in

Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia) lamented that the natives were incorrigibly lazy . . .(in Richards, 1939: 398).

Such judgements were premature because, as Malinowski said, concerning economics,There is no other aspect of primitive life where our knowledge is more scanty and ourunderstanding more superficial (Malinowski, 1922: 84). Social anthropological researchrapidly altered this situation. Malinowskis own work on the Trobriand economy in bothArgonauts(1922) and Coral Gardens(1935); Firths on Tikopia in Primitive PolynesianEconomy(1939); and Richards on the Bemba, whom the administrators termed lazy, inLand, Labour and Diet(1939), provided detailed accounts of non-industrial production,

distribution and consumption. These accounts provided a first observational base fromwhich to confront unilinear evolutionary claims of laziness.

For example, Malinowski documented in Argonautsthat one aspect of Trobriandculture was the belief that certain objects called vaygua principally bracelets (mwali)and necklaces (soulava) were of immense value and, hence, desirable to possess. Hefurther established that a particular practice called the kula, where Trobrianders madelong ocean voyages exchanging these bangles, was the way by which Trobrianders couldsatisfy their goal of acquiring value. In fact, most ofArgonauts text can be read as a docu-mentation of how hard the natives worked (building canoes, sailing canoes, etc.) to get

their vaygua. After reading Argonauts, some commentators might impugn Trobriandersfor putting their faith in bangles, but they could not fault them on their work ethic toget those bangles. A tacit criticism here was that natives would labour for themselves,not their colonizers. Attention now focuses upon politics.

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Politics

Herewemust deal with politicsboth in societiesthat lacked government, the savagesin unilinear evolutionary schemes, and in those with some form of more centralizedgovernment, the barbarians. Bear in mind: political evolutionary theory could legiti-

mateimperialism if it madesavage and barbarian governmentsincompetent, becauseimperialists were then justified in stepping in and taking over. Herbert Spencer, com-menting upon a group of Shoshone, an uncentralized Native American foragingpeople, revealed something of unilinear evolutionary sentiment towards savage politicswhen he announced, that the Digger Indians, very few degrees removed from theourang-outang, who scattered among the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, shelteringin holes and living on roots and vermin, drag out a miserable existence in a state ofnature, amid the most loathsome and disgusting squalor, and differ from the otherdivisionsof the Shoshones by their entire lack of social organization (Spencer, 1883:vol. 2: 248).

Next contemplate the account by a Danish traveler, J.V. Helms, of a barbarous Indo-nesian kingdom he happened upon in the 1880s. Helms confided,

While I was at Bali one of these shocking sacrifices took place. The Rajah of the neigh-boring State died . . . his body was burned with great pomp, three of his concubinessacrificing themselves in the flames.

It was a sight never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it, and brought to onesheart a strange feeling of thankfulness that one belonged to a civilization . . . To the

British rule it is due that this foul plague of suttee is extirpated in India . . . Workslike these are the credentials by which the Western civilization makes good its rightto conquer and humanize barbarous races. . . (in Geertz, 1983: 3739).

The foregoing indicates just how disparaging unilinear evolutionary theory was ofsavage or barbarian politics. Governmentless savages were like apes living in dis-gusting anarchy. Barbarous races, for their part, did shocking things to their womenwhich made good the right of Western civilization to conquer them.

Most social anthropologists studied stateless peoples, and most, to some degree orother, addressed the issue of anarchy. Evans-Pritchards Nuer studies became the key todiscussions of this question. This research was performed at the request of the colonialgovernment of the Sudan (Evans-Pritchard, 1940: vii) when the Nuer were at war withthe authorities requesting Evans-Pritchards assistance. It has been condemned as aninstance of anthropological collaboration with colonial projects (Johnson, 1981). Cer-tainly, stripped of veiling hypocrisies, the authorities, bent on conquering the southernSudan, hoped that the anthropologist would give them pointers about how to rule theunruly Nilotics. Evans-Pritchard gave them something else.

He took Durkheimsnotion of segmentary organization, elaborated in TheDivisionof Labor(1964/1893) on the basis of few empirical specifics, and developed a seriesof

generalizations derived from his direct observation of how the Nuer controlled theirlives. These generalizations, such as that concerning the segmentary principle (Evans-Pritchard, 1940: 263), sought to explain how segmentary lineages actually governedvariousaspects of social life without all the bother and expense of government. When


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confronted with evidence, the unilinear evolutionary claim of savage anarchy wasunsubstantiated. Thus, in effect, what Evans-Pritchard did in TheNuerwas, instead ofshowing thecolonialistshow to rule, showed them that thosethey werekilling in orderto rule, ruled themselves quite well. Of course, he did not openly criticize the colo-

nialists. He merely pointed a finger and thanked the authorities for their hospitality(Evans-Pritchard, 1940: vii).Other social anthropologists replicated Evans-Pritchards findings by observing other

institutions by which savages controlled themselves. There were institutions that didthis by organizing people on the basis of age (Wilson, 1951; Gulliver, 1963). Equallyimportant were studies of the feud (Evans-Pritchard, 1940), witchcraft (Bohannon,1958), and divination and ancestor worship (Middleton, 1960), which showed howthese operated, often together, to motivate people to comply with the values of theirsociety. Such findings, summarized in Gluckman (1963), Mair (1962) and Schapera(1956), falsified the unilinear evolutionary assertion that savages lived in anarchy. Infact, they governed themselves so well that a new approximate truth seemed to haveemerged. Fortes expressed this when, on the basis of his Tallensi fieldwork, he offeredwhat amounted to an empirical generalization that economic life among the Tallensimade possible a social equilibrium (Fortes, 1945: x). Out with the old, anarchy; inwith the new, equilibrium.

Let us turn to barbarous states. In African Political Systems (Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, 1940), these were given the designation Type A societies and their studybegan later than did that of uncentralized polities. However, by the 1950s, social anthro-pologists had provided the most extensive analysis of non-Western centralized polities

that had been offered up to that time. These included, in southern Africa, Kriges (1936)account of the Zulu and her (1943) description of the Luvedu; H. Kupers (1947) analy-sis of the Swazi; and Schaperas (1940) investigations among the Tswana. There were, ineastern Africa, Barness (1954) inquiry into the Ngoni; Fallerss (1956) work among theSoga; and Southwalds (1961) study of the Ganda. Finally, in west Africa, S.F. Nadel(1942) wrote on the Nupe; Bradbury (1957) researched Benin; Lloyd (1954) analysedthe Yoruba; and M.G. Smith (1960) investigated Zaria.

This was a diverse group of studies. However, they generally corroborated the con-clusions of the authors who wrote about centralized societies in African Political Systems.

Fortes and Evans-Pritchard summarized these findings. If African states were not liberalWestern democracies, nevertheless,

. . . the government of an African state consists in a balance of power and authorityon the one side and obligation and responsibility on the other. Everyone who holdspolitical office has responsibilities for the public weal corresponding to his rights andprivileges. The distribution of political authority provides a machinery by which thevarious agents of government can be held to their responsibilities. A chief or a kinghas the right to exact tax, tribute, and labour service from his subjects; he has the cor-

responding obligation to dispense justice to them, to ensure their protection fromenemies and to safeguard their general welfare by ritual acts and observances. Thestructure of an African state implies that kings and chiefs rule by consent. (Fortes andEvans-Pritchard, 1940: 12)

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The crucial judgement here is that Type A politics were found to exhibit a balance ofpower and to have mechanisms that allowed rulers to govern with the consent of thegoverned.

Again, confrontation suggested a new approximate truth. The states in societies colon-

ized by imperialists did not really do such shocking things. Rather, it appeared to bethe case that they managed with at least some of the attributes of soi disantcivilizedliberal democracies. Implicit in this approximate truth was a criticism of imperialism.Helms had expressed the imperialist position when he said the civilized had a right toconquer, because they could humanize the barbarous. However, the social anthro-pologists reported that it was mistaken to represent non-Western states as barbarous,which eliminated any imperialist justification of their right to conquer. It is time toturn to religion.

Religion

The study of religion had been an important feather in the cap of unilinear evolution-ary theory. The most celebrated scholar dealing with this topic was E.B. Tylor who, asa result of the application of the comparative method over an enormous range of materi-als, believed that he had discovered the first form of religion. This was animism, . . . thegeneral belief in spiritual beings (Tylor, 1871, vol. 2: 10). Tylor saw animism arisingfrom a childlike philosophy (Tylor, 1871, vol. 2: 100). Similarly, he commented uponthe proliferation of magical beliefs among the natives. These he believed were illusional,and that magic itself was . . . one of the most pernicious delusions that ever vexedmankind (Tylor, 1871, vol. 1: 112). Morgan (1877: 5) caught this spirit when he said,

. . . primitive religions are grotesque. Religion, then, among the lower races was fullof magical terrors that took the form of grotesque, childlike delusions, and thusappeared to confirm the claim that inferior races could not make the grade because theylacked reason.

There was a considerable old social anthropological research in religion. Perhaps themost influential research was that of Evans-Pritchard among the Azande (1937) andNuer (1956). Additionally important, however, were Nadels (1954), Middletons(1960), Leinhardts (1961), and Douglass (1966) contributions. Much is divergent inthese studies, but common to all was a reluctance to issue sweeping proclamations, such

as Tylors that he had found the first form of religion. Rather, as Nadel put it, in thespirit of cautious confrontational science, Today we have grown more modest, but alsomore conscious of the need for precision and solid empirical evidence (Nadel, 1957:198). However, all agreed with Evans-Pritchard, speaking of the Nuer, that the evidencepointed to one truth, that the . . . religious thought of those they analysed was, remark-ably sensitive, refined and intelligent. It is also highly complex (Evans-Pritchard, 1956:311).

The essential text reporting evidence in support of this proposition was Evans-Pritchards Wi tchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande(1937). Commenting upon

it almost two decades after its original publication, Evans-Pritchard said that it was anattempt to take what at first glance seems to be the absurd superstition (1962: 102)of Azande beliefs and practices involving witches and . . .to make [these] intelligible, allof which are foreign to the mentality of a modern Englishman, by showing how theyform a comprehensible system of thought. . .and how this system of thought is related


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to social activities, social structure, and the life of the individual (Evans-Pritchard, 1962:98). Further, he allowed that the complex system of beliefs surrounding Azande witch-craft . . . make sense only when they are seen as interdependent parts of a whole whichhas a logical structure (Evans-Pritchard, 1962: 99).

The point of the preceding is twofold. The Azande may not have had Cartesian reasonthat Comte could recognize, but they had a logical structure, a reason. So, savagethought was not childlike. Rather, evidence supported a new approximate truth. Therewere forms of reason that existed of which the savages were informed, and Comte andhis colleagues were oblivious. Secondly, implicit in Evans-Pritchards evidence was anirony. Those who called others childlike turned out to be childlike themselves, because,like impetuous children, they were unable to resist the impulse to make assertions basedupon the first glance.

What conclusion might readers draw from the two previous sections? The socialanthropologists were not confrontational in the sense of having an explicit research strat-egy that they consciously applied. Rather, imagining themselves as scientists, theymuddled their way to making observational advances, chiefly by replacing the com-parative method with full-flavoured observation. Furthermore, if they did not knowthey were interested in invalidating theory, they did know they intended to confrontunilinear theory with the facts; which they did, and in so doing, they literally assumeda confrontational stance. It may be observed that Franz Boas, and his students, were sub-jecting unilinear theoretical propositions to confrontation at exactly the same time andit became clear: the imagined world of the unilinear evolutionists, so congenial to theImperial imaginary, was unreal. Confrontation had done the job. Basic theoretical

propositions of the unilinear evolutionists were falsified. Now, if informal application ofthe confrontational stance can have such impressive results, perhaps it is sensible to for-mally specify some of the practices involved in this stance, especially as they pertain tovalidation histories, so as to know how to replicate these results.

VALIDATION HISTORIES

A first and fundamental requirement of being confrontational is to recognize that tosome degree, all people are blind Tiresiases rich in imagination, short on vision. Theconfrontational stance is a way of combining the frailer visions of many individuals to

achieve a more exact vision for the social whole. It does this by being a comparativeenter-prise, but in a way that is unfamiliar to anthropology. Generally, anthropologists under-stand comparison to be observation of two different societies or cultures Barma inChad versus Nuer in the Sudan in order to discover similarities and differences. Thisis a comparison of two different realities to understand the degree to which they are asingle type of reality. The comparison which underlies the confrontational stance isbetween two or more theoretical propositions and their associated empirical statementswhich concern a single type of reality. It is comparison of Comtes empirical statementthat primitives lack reason with Evans-Pritchards assurance that they have it in abun-

dance. If theoretical propositions and empirical statements are imaginations of the real,then the comparison in the confrontational stance is between whose imaginaries aremore real; and many visionaries are called upon to make the observations that judge thereality of the imaginary. These visionaries, to avoid being Tiresiases, need to cooperatein constructing validation histories. The formulation of such histories requires concern

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for confrontational feasibility, validation episodes, validation sets, validation universes,positive and negative confrontation, confrontation records, and rigour, which are dis-cussed here.

A validation episode is a record of a confrontation of a theoretical proposition, or

propositions, with the reality to which they pertain. However, before a validationepisode can occur, there must be judgements about whether the concepts and therelationships in theoretical propositionsare such that a confrontation is feasible. Con-frontation, it will be remembered, is observation of whether what somebody imaginesto beis sensed to be. Certain concepts, however, defy observation, either because theylack empirical referentsor they aresimply too ambiguous. Empirical referentsareinfor-mation in a concept concerning what it refers to in reality. Freudian concepts, such asthe id, have been criticized as lacking in empirical referents. Ambiguousconcepts arethose which are so unclear that there is no clarity about what observations could bemadethat pertain to theconcept. Somewould admit to therebeing ambiguitiesin theconcept of equality.

The problem with concepts in theoretical propositions that lack empirical referentsand/or are ambiguous is that they do not have the information necessary to instruct aninvestigator as to how to sense the reality to which they are imagined to pertain. Where,for example, do you look to see the id?This makes it impossible to derive empirical state-ments from them. Confrontational infeasibility occurs when there is no, or unclear,knowledge of how to sense the reality referred to in a concept. For example, Fortessempirical generalization that economic conditions caused equilibrium among theTallensi might be considered confrontationally questionable because it is not clear what

sensory information bears upon the concept of equilibrium. Fortes assumed in his textthat his readers knew what equilibrium was, so he gave them no instructions as to whatthey would see or hear that indicated a particular social reality is in equilibrium. If aninvestigator claims to have made a confrontation, even though it is abundantly clear thata proposition is confrontationally unfeasible, then that validation episode should be saidto have been inconclusive.

If theoretical propositions are composed of confrontationally feasible concepts, ifempirical statements have been derived from these, then there must bea moment ofconfrontation when observations are made. This moment is the validation episode.

In the confrontation between Junod and Radcliffe-Brown over the MB/ZS relation-ship, this would be the exact timeand place among certain people when Junod madethe observationswhich hebelieved allowed him to assert that there had been a matri-archal stageamong theThonga. Similarly, it would betheexact timeand placeamongcertain people from which Radcliffe-Brown madehis observations. In fact, both gen-tleman were unclear about exactly what observations they were referring to, so thattheir specification of the validation episodeswhich form the basis of their judgementsisobscure.

The results of a confrontation in a validation episode may be said to be positive or

negative. Positive confrontation is validation. Sensation of reality consistent with whatan empirical statement says will be sensed. Negative confrontation is falsification. Sen-sation of reality inconsistent with what an empirical statement says will be sensed. Theunilinear evolutionists offered the theoretical proposition that the savages were lazybecause they lacked reason. An empirical statement based upon this was that particular


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examples of savages would be found to not work hard. However, Malinowski sensedthat the Trobrianders worked darn hard. Thus, the unilinear evolutionary theoreticalproposition received negative confirmation. However, the exact same observations whichfalsified the unilinear evolutionists theory provided positive confirmation of the alterna-

tive theoretical proposition that people labor industriously to acquire culturally definedvalue.A validation set is the set of all validation episodes reporting confrontation between

particular theoretical propositions and their realities. Validation sets have their con-frontation records, which are the number of positive and negative confrontations in thedifferent validation episodes composing the entire set. If the confrontation record in avalidation set is entirely positive, then the proposition undergoing validation may be saidto be approximately true.

The construction of validation sets is not part of current anthropological practice, soit is not possible to specify with any certainty the confrontation records of particulartheoretical propositions. However, it might be said informally that a fair number ofanthropologists have examined the question of the savages laziness, and have reportedfindings similar to those of Malinowski among the Trobrianders. Thus, it seems likelythat if one were to formulate a validation set for the theoretical proposition people laborto acquire culturally defined value, than it would be judged approximately true on thebasis of its confrontation record. However, approximate truths promulgated in theabsence of a validation universe should be recognized to be tentative.

Less tentative approximate truths are possible when validation histories have beenconstructed in which there are opposing validation sets. Validation universes are two

or more validation sets for two or more theoretical propositions dealing with the samereality. This means that there is a showdown between the confrontation records of com-peting validation sets in validation universes. Consider, for example, the duelingComtean and Malinowskian propositions that the savages are lazy because they lackreason versus people labor industriously to acquire culturally defined value. These dealwith the same type of reality, that of people working. Anecdotal evidence of differentvalidation episodes pertaining to the two validation sets suggests falsification for theComtean theoretical proposition and validation for its Malinowskian competitor. If aformal validation universe for these two theoretical prepositions was constructed, and if

this universe sustained the previous sentences judgement, then Malinowskis theoreticalproposition would be approximately truer than that of Comte.

Finally, let me introduce the notion of rigour as it pertains to the confrontationalstance. Rigour refers to how theory has been produced. The rigour of a theoreticalproposition is the number of times and places it has been validated, with it understoodthat the greater the number of times and places of validation, the greater the rigour. Thenotion of place in a validation episode needs to be made explicit. Places are regions inreality where validation episodes occur, and the greater the number of places in whicha theoretical proposition has been validated, the greater its generality. If a theoretical

proposition has received no validation, it lacks rigour. If it has been validated in anumber of places in a number of validation episodes in a validation set, then it has stillsome rigour. However, its rigour is still not sufficient to say that it has some truth.

A theoretical proposition may be known with such rigour that it is said to be true whena showdown has occurred in a validation universe. If the showdown reveals that one

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theoretical proposition has been validated and another falsified, then the validatedproposition may be said to be approximately truer for the validation universe in whichthe confrontations have occurred. Thus, it is literally appropriate to assert that theorycounts, because researchers must compute the numbers, places and outcomes of con-

frontations in order to establish the truth with any rigour.The case of the social anthropologists reveals the potential of taking a confron-tational stance. Malinowski and company disclosed the falsity of unilinear evolution-ary theory because of their better observational techniques and their will howeverslap-dash to validate. However, though they took their observation very seriously,they werecasual about validation. They were poor at specifying their validationepisodes. They did not take different ethnographers validation episodesbearing uponthe same theoretical propositionsand explicitly build validation sets. They never for-mally sought to build validation universes, though on occasion they casually con-structed them when Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski confronted Junod and Comte.Thus, the social anthropologists revelation of the falsity of unilinear evolutionarytheory lacked any great rigour.

Further, when the social anthropologists rejected the evolutionists comparativemethod, they did something that continues to bedevil the disciplines ability to take aconfrontational stance. Rejection of the comparative method marginalized comparativeresearch. Such marginalization still characterizes both social and cultural anthropology.I study my people. You study your people. This means, even though we look at differ-ent places, as the term has just been defined, we do not compare them. There is noexplicit conducting of validation episodes concerning a particular theoretical proposi-

tion among the different places anthropologists study. This, in turn, means that the gen-erality of such propositions is not established, so that they lack rigour. Thus, the absenceof comparative research is a fundamental constraint upon the assumption of a confron-tational stance in anthropology. Let us draw the argument of this article to a conclusionby returning to the blind Tiresiases and the philosopher.

CONCLUSION

A great deal has been at issue in this essay, for the concern has been to nudge anthro-pology away from being a confederation of blind Tiresiases, and towards one of new

Herculeses, with the ability to make it the central discipline investigating humanity. Theblindness of the Tiresiases is not that their visions are always incorrect. Tiresias, in fact,often got it right. Their blindness lies in the fact that they have no idea howthey got itright. The confrontational stance is a way of knowing how to get it right.

A discipline that deliberately develops improved observational and validational tool-kits is taking a confrontational stance. Such a methodological strategy tells anthropolo-gists when they should be skeptical when there are frail observational techniques andno validation histories bearing upon theory; and how to avoid dogmatism by improv-ing observational capacities as well as formulating validation histories. Such histories

provide anthropologists with chronicles of confrontation in validation universes indi-cating that this proposition, on the basis of its confrontation record, is approximatelytruer than that one. A virtue, then, of the confrontational stance is that, in BertrandRussells sense, it serves a positive purpose by telling one with rigour when it is right tobe skeptical of a truth, in the absence of validation histories, and how to rightly avoid


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dogmatism concerning truth, by making more rigorous validation universes. When lastheard from, the anthropological Tiresiases were bracketed. Let the unbracketing occur,and the games of confrontation begin.

Notes1 Tyler and Marcus consider themselves to be postmodern, so it may seem that I judgepostmodernism to be anti-theoretical. This is correct. My sense is that post-modernists do not formulate theory as it is understood in science. Lyotard (1984),for example, was interested in the utility of metanarratives. He decided all of theseshould be treated skeptically. Now, a certain metanarrative, that of science, is used tomake theory. This meant, if all metanarratives should be treated with incredulity, andtheory was part of the metanarrative of science, then theory was to be treated withskepticism.

2 Readers should note that the discussion in this paragraph concerns scientific and notmathematical practices. Mathematical propositions are validated by different logicsand not observation. The argument in this text is not concerned with validation ofmathematical generalizations.

3 Readers may construe discussion of empirical generalization, hypothesis, and theoryin the text as indicating support for covering law explanations. This is not the case.The article is about the virtues of confrontation and not those of different forms ofexplanation. Hence, it does not advocate any particular explanatory mode. However,I am partial to causal explanations.

4 There are competing doctrines of confrontation in the philosophy of science. The

traditional view had been that of justificationalism, which believed that confrontationcould result in proven theory. This view is said to have suffered a breakdown(Lakatos, 1970: 93) and to have been replaced by different forms of neojustifica-tionalism, notably that of Carnaps probabalism, also said to have failed (Lakatos,1968), and to have been replaced by different forms of falsificationism, associated withPopper (1959) and his followers. The approach proposed in this text is indebted toLakatoss (1970) version of falsificationism.

5 The major unilinear evolutionists, in addition to Tylor and Morgan, were A. Comte,H. Spencer, J.J. Bachofen, L.H. Maine, J. Lubbock and J.F. McLennon. Their most

intense period of publication was the quarter of a century between 1860 and 1885.6 The chief social anthropologists, beside Malinowski, were A.R. Radcliffe-Brown,

E.E. Evans-Pritchard, M. Fortes, R. Firth, S.F. Nadel, M. Gluckman, I. Schapera,G. Wilson and M. Wilson. They flourished from 1922, and the publication of Arg-onauts, until 1957 when Leach announced that it was time to start rethinking thewhole project.

7 Readers should not misconstrue this section, and the one following, to be a hagiog-raphy in praise of social anthropology. They should consult the critical, and not socritical, commentaries to get a fuller appreciation of the tradition (see especially

Kuper, 1973; and Kuklick, 1991; Goody, 1995; Stocking, 1995). Elsewhere I haveargued that social anthropologists created a regime of hypocrisy congenial to imperial-ist times (Reyna, n.d.). However, their researches can be used to illustrate the takingof a confrontational stance.

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S.P. REYNA is at the Max Planck Institute in Halle until December 2001 after which time he will return to

University of New Hampshire. He is interested in anthropological theory, the history of anthropological

theory, and power within a global context. Address: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Leipzer

Strasse 91 (Ritterhaus), Postfach 11 03 51, 06017 Halle, Germany.

Anthropology Dept., University of New Hampshire, 311 Huddlestone Hall, Durham, NH 03824, USA.

[email: [email protected]]

REYNA Theory counts

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