A comparative analysis of the schools of thought of historical particularism and functionalism
Written in 2008; 1,527 words; 6 sources; MLA; $ 50.95
Paper Summary:
This paper compares and contrasts historical particularism and functionalism. The paper first discusses how historical particularism was a school of thought which concentrated on a holistic historical approach to the study of cultures and civilizations, from the development of their language to their physical appearance. Historical particularists believed in concentrated study of a people and their languages to gain a full understanding on their culture. The paper then discusses functionalism and explains that it sought to be a corrective to the excesses of the evolutionary and diffusionist theories of the nineteenth-century and the historicism of the early twentieth century. Functionalism concentrated all of its resources into describing the material, psychological, physical, and social structures of a civilization. The paper concludes with a brief summary of the differences and similarities of the two schools of thought and notes that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
From the Paper:
"Historical particularism and functionalism are related in the way that they both concentrate on details and pre-existing conditions. These methods were demonstrated in the various essays by Franz Boas and A. L. Kroeber for historical particularism, and Bronislaw Malinowski and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown for functionalism. Specifically, Boas, in The Methods of Ethnology, argued against the various traditional evolutionary theories proposed by Lewis Morgan, Karl Marx, Sir Edward Tylor, and Herbert Spencer. He criticized the theory of the nineteenth-century evolutionism as non-scientific and claimed historical particularism to be free from preconceived ideas. Stating simply that these theories had a particular resilience, but lacked any sort of empirical evidence, Boas argued that the evolutionary theory was based on the counterfactual assumption that our culture was the most advanced and all others were merely following us (Boas 1920). "
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