Thinking about Society: Theory and Practice

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

   PDF

2. Problems and Theories in the Social Sciences

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Objectivism Versus Relativism

      1. The Notion of a Social Science

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 3-16

      2. Social Perception and Social Change

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 17-34

      3. Realism and the Supposed Poverty of Sociological Theories

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 35-49

      4. Rationality and relativism

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 50-69

      5. Popper on the Difference between the Natural and the Social Sciences

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 70-94

   3. Philosophy of Anthropology

      1. The Emergence of Social Anthropology from Philosophy

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 95-106

      2. On Theories of Fieldwork and the Scientific Character of Social Anthropology

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 107-126

      3. Limits to Functionalism and Alternatives to It in Anthropology

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 127-143

      4. On the Objectivity of Anthropology

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 144-151

      5. The Problem of Ethical Integrity in Participant Observation

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 152-161

      6. Anthropology as Science and the Anthropology of Science and of Anthropology

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 162-182

      7. Epistle to the Anthropologists

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 183-196

      8. On the Limits of Symbolic Interpretation in Anthropology

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 197-211

      9. The Problem of the Ethnographic Real

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 212-232

      10. Anthropologists and the Irrational

          • I. C. Jarvie

          Pages 233-256

      11. Freeman on Mead

          • I. C. Jarvie

          Pages 257-262

3. Applications and Implications

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 263-263

      PDF

   2. Society and the Arts

      1. The Objectivity of Criticism of the Arts

         • I. C. Jarvie

         Pages 265-281

I. C. Jarvie was trained as a social anthropologist in the center of British social anthropology - the London School of Economics, where Bronislaw Malinowski was the object of ancestor worship. Jarvie's doctorate was in philosophy, however, under the guidance of Karl Popper and John Watkins. He changed his department not as a defector but as a rebel, attempting to exorcize the ancestral spirit. He criticized the method of participant obser­ vation not as useless but as not comprehensive: it is neither necessary nor sufficient for the making of certain contributions to anthropology; rather, it all depends on the problem-situation. And so Jarvie remained an anthro­ pologist at heart, who, in addition to some studies in rather conventional anthropological or sociological molds, also studied the tribe of social scien­ tists, but also critically examining their problems - especially their overall, rather philosophical problems, but not always so: a few of the studies in­ cluded in this volume exemplify his work on specific issues, whether of technology, or architecture, or nationalism in the academy, or moviemaking, or even movies exhibiting excessive sex and violence. These studies attract his attention both on account of their own merit and on account of their need for new and powerful research tools, such as those which he has forged in his own intellectual workshop over the last two decades.

• Institution
• Nation
• anthropology
• environment
• interpret
• issue
• knowledge
• philosophy

` ... this cohesively organized anthology, written in compact and clear manner, contains an abundance of provocative issues intriguingly stated and cogently argued. ... this is a conceptually opulent work both in depth and scope and one highly recommended for social philosophers, philosophers of the social sciences, sociologists and anthropologists.'
Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 29:3, 1995

• York University, Toronto, Canada

  I. C. Jarvie

Policies and ethics