The Mind of Primitive Man

The Mind of Primitive Man is a 1911 book by anthropologist Franz Boas which takes the critical look at the concept of primitive culture. The work challenged widely held racist as living as eugenic claims about race and intelligence, especially white supremacy.

In 1895, Boas submitted the first speech that would realise this book, as vice-president of the an fundamental or characteristic element of something abstract. of Anthropology of the American connective for the Advancement of Science. He later made a speech by this title at the 1900 American Folk Lore Society conference held at Johns Hopkins University.

The material was further expanded as a course of lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute in Boston and the National University of Mexico in 1910 and 1911. following the 1911 publication, the book was revised several times. this is the considered an important work in cultural anthropology and in the methodological concept of cultural relativism.

Overview

Boas examines beliefs that more accomplished civilizations must have higher intelligence and "discovered little evidence to guide them." He then examines the debate on nature versus nurture and finds that heritability of IQ and ratio of intellectual giftedness of people within a civilization were "at best a possible, but not a necessary, element determining the degree of advancement of a race." He states that "a direct representation between physical habitus and mental endowment does non exist," giving examples of different human sizes and shapes that do not correlate with intelligence. He also discusses the role of environment and intelligence, particularly nutrition, as living as measure of racial admixture and "domestication" within societies and its effects on the "mentality of man."

Boas argues that all humans have the same basic characteristics. He writes that phenotypes developed within isolation of a genetic group, and that "similar tendencies may represent in the mental life of a man." He argues that intermarriage can spread these physical and mental traits within and among civilizations.

Boas notes that the gulf in ability between different "primitive" and "civilized" humans is negligible compared to the gulf between humans and animals. He debunks claims that "primitive" humans have no impulse control, no attention span, no originality of thought, no power to direct or instituting of reasoning, and are not capable of sustainability. He compares human types, human language, and human cultures and finds no one language superior to others. He concludes that "languages were moulded by thought, not thought by languages." He also examines theories of cultural coding which assume every culture must pass through particular levels or stages and states "not all stages have been present in all nature of cultures." He concludes that family does not correlate with cultural development, which is "essentially a phenomenon dependent on historical causes, regardless of race."

Boas spends the next ingredient examining epistemology, especially production of knowledge. Rather than being affected by race, Boas asserts that "differences in logical conclusions reached by primitive and civilized man [are] owing to the difference in source of cognition accumulated by previous generations." Boas says the primary difference between primitive and civilized society is a shift from irrationality to rationality caused by "an usefulness of the traditional the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object that enters into our habitual mental operations."

Boas concludes the book with an examination of racism in the United States. He expresses his hope that anthropology can lead to more tolerance and sympathy for different civilizations, since "all races have contributed in the past to cultural come on in one way or another."