From: coonstot@quads.uchicago.edu (charles orville onstott)
Subject: Re: The Bible In The Context of Its Time
Reply-To: coonstot@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 19:24:05 GMT

In article <5923@news.duke.edu> strange@acpub.duke.edu (Michael B. Scher) writes:
>In article <1992Oct8.221555.18643@midway.uchicago.edu> coonstot@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>           .  .  . [stuff deleted]
>>
>>Focci of fields(Abbreviated):
>>
>>  Anthro - Human Being, Individual
>>  Socio  - Institution
>>  Psycho - Individual in a current context with the purpose of "optimum
>>  human functioning," or, for philosophic questions.
>>  Women  - Human Being, Woman, Individual +  Institutions of Women, etc.
>>
>     Actually, Anthropology has always been, and remains, interested in the
>institutions of a society, as well as the roles of individuals withing those
>institutions. 

      However, I would argue that the interest in institutions
by anthropologists is meerly to gain an understanding of them in 
so far as they can advance research on the individual's participation.
In other words, the anthropological study of institutions meerly
allows the construction of a culture so as to provide background
for studies of the individuals.  In sociology, institutions are
studied as entities unto themselves.

	 If anything divides the three (four) fields, it is not so much
>their focus as their methodologies.

     Certainly methodologies play a critical role, however I could
argue that there exist strong similarites between anthropological
and sociological methodologies.


>     I would note that in anthropology, we study everything from the 
>individual as a member of society, to the institutions of the society quite
>apart from the individuals (e.g. studies of kinship and locality systems),
>to the society-wide institutions that exist on a culturally-created level,
>but are taken as hard realities (e.g. race, gender).

 This is interesting, but I am not certain that what anthropology 
does in this case is conduct a study sociologically.

  There is a sociology 
>of abnormal psychology, and a social psychology; there is the anthropology
>of educational institutions in the U.S.; in short, subject matter does not
>define the fields, but the questions asked and methods applied most certainly
>does (and even that blurs as I am applying a version of the Sociological
>ethnomethodology in my Anthropology).

  Yes, and you will find that the questions asked by anthropology of
educational institutions still focus on the individual.

>
>>The distinctions between these fields aren't so interesting.  The
>>real question is "What is a culture?"
>
>     I am not sure Psychology really cares "what is culture;" nor as I
>have heard it from various horses' mouths does Sociology.  Indeed, for
>sociologists, "culture" seems to be that 'stuff' left over when the 
>measurable factors seem to peter out;  One thing to remember is that of
>all contenporary anthropologists, Geertz has the widest readership in other
>disciplines--and Geertz's symbolically-integrated, grok-able culture model
>(what I sometimes call monolithic culture) not only has permeated other
>disciplines, but did so precisely because it allows them to call "culture"
>whatever behaviors/etc. they cannot name/assign a scale within their own
>terms.

  True enough; however the question still remains critical to 
the study of anthropology.

>
>      -Mike
>-- 
>Mike Scher                      strange@hercules.acpub.duke.edu
>Duke University -- Durham, NC:  Law and Cultural Anthropology 
>This post expressly not for use as toilet tissue.
>(K) 1991 Net Prophet Productions - All lefts deserved.

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

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Charles O. Onstott, III                    (coonstot@midway.uchicago.edu)
Graduate Student in Religion and Human Sciences
The University of Chicago Divinity School

"Les dieux existent : c'est le diable."
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Newsgroups: sci.anthropology