The Philosophical Roots of Anthropology

Few anthropologists have made any attempts to explore their own discipline's prehistory or to have realized its importance. William Adams attempts to rectify this myopic self-awareness by applying anthropology's own tools to itself while uncovering the discipline's debt to earlier thinkers. Adams recognizes that many ideas which were anticipated in antiquity have had a lasting influence on anthropological models in particular. Adams has chosen five philosophical currents whose influences have been, and continue to be, very widespread, particularly in North American anthropology: progressivism, primitivism, natural law, German idealism, and 'Indianology'. This work serves as the basis for the explanation of the true historical and philosophical underpinnings of anthropology and its goals.