Systems-Thinking and Robert Redfield November 9, 2010
Posted by Christopher Donohue in History of the Human Sciences.Tags: Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, Edward Sapir, Emile Durkheim, Ferdinand Tönnies, Franz Boas, Georg Simmel, Hebert Spencer, Max Weber, Montesquieu, Oswald Spengler, Robert Park, Robert Redfield, Victor Turner, Wilhelm Windelband
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Robert Redfield
Robert Redfield (1897-1958) earned his degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1920. More than any anthropologist of his generation, argues Clifford Wilcox, Redfield adopted a “pronounced sociological approach to anthropology.” According to Wilcox, two broad intellectual currents influenced Redfield’s development: “the deep-seated critique of civilization that emerged among European and American intellectuals following World War I,” and “his father-in-law, University of Chicago sociologist Robert E. Park ” (Social Anthropology, xiv.)
In contrast to the assertive Victorian belief in progress, in the period following the First World War, intellectuals began to “question the nature not only of Western civilization, but of civilization itself, particularly the equation of civilization with progress.” Among those who penned withering critiques of civilization were Oswald Spengler and Edward Sapir. (more…)
