Edward Burnett Tylor

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Edward Burnett Tylor bigraphy, stories - British anthropologist

Edward Burnett Tylor : biography

2 October 1832 – 2 January 1917

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (2 October 1832 – 2 January 1917), was an English anthropologist.

Tylor is representative of cultural evolutionism. In his works Primitive Culture and Anthropology, he defined the context of the scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell. He believed that there was a functional basis for the development of society and religion, which he determined was universal. Tylor is considered by many to be a founding figure of the science of social anthropology, and his scholarly works helped to build the discipline of anthropology in the nineteenth century.Paul Bohannan, Social Anthropology (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1969) He believed that "research into the history and prehistory of man… could be used as a basis for the reform of British society."Lewis, Herbert S. (1998) , American Anthropologist 100: 716-731

Tylor reintroduced the term animism (faith in the individual soul or anima of all things, and natural manifestations) into common use., Online Etymology Dictionary, accessed 2 October 2007. He considered animism to be the first phase of development of religions.

Related studies

  • Joan Leopold, Culture in Comparative and Evolutionary Perspective: E. B. Tylor and the Making of Primitive Culture (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1980).
  • George W. Stocking, , American Anthropologist, 65 (1963), 783–799
  • , Robert Graber, Truman State University
  • Giulio Angioni, Tre saggi sull’antropologia dell’età coloniale (Palermo, Flaccovio, 1973); Fare, dire, sentire: l’identico e il diverso nelle culture (Nuoro, Il Maestrale, 2011).
  • Laavanyan Ratnapalan, "E. B. Tylor and the Problem of Primitive Culture," History and Anthropology, 19,2 (2008), 131-142.
  • Hugh J. Dawson (1993) "E. B. Tylor’s Theory of Survivals and Veblen’s Social Criticism", Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 54, pp. 489–504
  • Margaret T. Hodgen (1931) . American Anthropologist, vol 33. pp 307–324
  • Robert H. Lowie (1917) "Edward B. Tylor obituary". American Anthropologist Vol. 19 pp. 262–268

Survivals

A term ascribed to Tylor was his theory of "survivals". Tylor asserted that when a society evolves, certain customs are retained that are unnecessary in the new society, like outworn and useless "baggage".Wallis, Wilson D. (1936). "Reviewed Work(s): ‘The Doctrine of Survivals’ by Margaret T. Hodgen", The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 49, No. 193. (Jul. – Sep., 1936), pp. 273-274. His definition of survivals is

"Survivals" can include outdated practices, such as the European practice of bloodletting, which lasted long after the medical theories on which it was based had faded from use and been replaced by more modern techniques.Braun, Willi and Russel T. McCutcheon, eds. 2000. Guide to the Study of Religion. London: Continuum. 160. Critics argued that he identified the term but provided an insufficient reason as to why survivals continue. Tylor’s meme-like concept of survivals explains the characteristics of a culture that are linked to earlier stages of human culture.Moore, Jerry D. "Edward Tylor: The Evolution of Culture," Visions of Culture: an Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists, Walnut Creek, California: Altamira, 1997. 23.

Studying survivals assists ethnographers in reconstructing earlier cultural characteristics and possibly reconstructing the evolution of culture.Moore, Jerry D. "Edward Tylor: The Evolution of Culture." Visions of Culture: an Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. Walnut Creek: Altamira, 1997. 24.

Religion as a survival

Tylor argued that people had used religion to explain things that occurred in the world.Strenski, Ivan. "The Shock of the ‘Savage’: Edward Burnett Tylor, Evolution, and Spirits," Thinking About Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2006. 93. He saw that it was important for religions to have the ability to explain why and for what reason things occurred in the world.Strenski, Ivan. "The Shock of the ‘Savage’: Edward Burnett Tylor, Evolution, and Spirits." Thinking About Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2006. 94. For example, God (or the divine) gave us sun to keep us warm and give us light. Tylor argued that animism is the true natural religion that is the essence of religion; it answers the questions of which religion came first and which religion is essentially the most basic and foundation of all religions. For him, animism was the best answer to these questions, so it must be the true foundation of all religions. Animism is described as the belief in spirits inhabiting and animating beings, or souls existing in things. To Tylor, the fact that modern religious practitioners continued to believe in spirits showed that these people were no more advanced than primitive societies.Strenski, Ivan. "The Shock of the ‘Savage’: Edward Burnett Tylor, Evolution, and Spirits." Thinking About Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2006. 99. For him, this implied that modern religious practitioners do not understand the ways of the universe and how life truly works because they have excluded science from their understanding of the world. By excluding scientific explanation in their understanding of why and how things occur, he asserts modern religious practitioners are rudimentary. Tylor perceived the modern religious belief in God as a “survival” of primitive ignorance. He claimed the contemporary belief in God to be a survival, because science could explain the phenomena previously justified by religion.