Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology

by Lawrence A. Kuznar

Overview

This second edition of Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology arrives at just the right time, as new advances in science increasingly affect anthropologists of all stripes. Lawrence Kuznar begins by reviewing the basic issues of scientific epistemology in anthropology as they have taken shape over the life of the discipline. He then describes postmodern and other critiques of both science and scientific anthropology, and he concludes with stringent analyses of these debates. This new edition brings this important text firmly into the 21st century; it not only updates the scholarly debates but it describes new research techniques—such as computer modeling systems—that could not have been imagined just a decade ago. In a field that has become increasingly divided over basic methods of reasearch and interpretation, Kuznar makes a powerful argument that anthropology should return to its roots in empirical science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780759111097
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/05/2008
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Lawrence A. Kuznar is professor of anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Preface, First Edition
Chapter 2 Preface, Second Edition
Part 3 Part I
Chapter 4 Introduction
Chapter 5 Chapter 1. Anthropological Science
Chapter 6 Chapter 2. Science - Problems with Progress
Chapter 7 Chapter 3. Anthropological Science - Two Examples
Part 8 Part II
Chapter 9 Chapter 4. The Postmodern Vanguard: Non-Traditional Critics of Science
Chapter 10 Chapter 5. Elevating the Other/Looking Back Upon Ourselves: Postmodern and Critical Anthropology
Chapter 11 Chapter 6. The Mutable Past: Postmodern Archaeology
Part 12 Part III
Chapter 13 Chapter 7. Strange Bedfellows: Comparison of Challenges to Scientific Anthropology
Chapter 14 Chapter 8. Crusading Anthropology - The Case Against
Chapter 15 Chapter 9. Computational Social Science: Adding Method to Madness
Chapter 16 Chapter 10. Where Do We Go From Here? A Future Scientific Anthropology
Chapter 17 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

Praise for the previous edition: 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 beenremoved from under students' feet....

Critique Of Anthropology

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 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

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, (University of California, San Diego)

A timely, thoughtful and civil intervention in the disputes that dominate our fractious discipline.--Marvin Harris, University of Florida

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

From the Publisher

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