I find this hard to understand from a scientific point of view. If history and anthropology were the same disciplines, why would we teach them separately? Doesn't history teach more than just about humans?

It is rather limited if people do view history as if people in the past were always in worse conditions. I don't think that approach was necessarily taken when I was taught history at school. There were difficult periods, such as th, but there were great civilisations in the past, especially the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians.

I do think that some people in philosophy circles tend to think of the history of ideas as if the progression of ideas is all progress, but, at the same time, many do appreciate thinkers of the past as having great value, especially Plato, but many others too. We are in the position to look back on the history of ideas but that doesn't make the ideas of our times any superior. Possibly, some scientists may think it does, including some psychologists.

When you compare history with anthropology it does seem to me that the two can be layed out similarly, one across time and the other across cultures geographically. However, I think that in some cases the sense of people viewing anthropology can be viewed with the same imperialistic bias. The West is sometimes viewed as more advanced.

So, you could ask to what extent are we able to look back on history and across cultures and not make assumptions about progress, and with an undercurrent of a sense of superiority? I think that some people are able to do this but, definitely, not everyone. To do so, doesn't just mean that the whole of the past are just evaluated relatively, but just not assuming that one's subjectivity, within time and culture is the supreme point from which to view all else.

I think empirical and cultural anthropology are scientific. The first is a type of paleontology and the second studies and observes current societies. However, history, as reality, does not exist. And as a discourse it is a type of narrative.

@Gus Lamarch

I think it is a fair comment to make in the current situation. Today ‘history’ (or rather ‘interpreting history’) has become the mainstay rather than simple scholarship (attempts at dry records of current events).

You’ve not really sold me on the ‘ancients’ pessimism and modern ‘optimism’ - so to speak. I think in societies there are always somewhat equally pervading elements of both. The idea of a ‘Golden Age’ has persisted right through from ancient Greece even into the current colloquial “When I was a lad ...” which can be both a harking back to better days and/or referring to the benefits that people have today.

With the advent of History human perspective has necessarily changed. Our arrival at the written/recorded word/thought our very idea and conceptualisation of a thing called ‘time’ has undoubtedly embedded itself in the heart of practically every human on the planet today. The empirical pencil we’ve mapped the world (weltanschuuang) with has become increasingly hard to erase/ignore.

Isiah Berlin’s ideas may be related to what you’re looking at here? His thought on “Pluralism/monism” echoing something in what you’re saying here.

If history and anthropology were the same disciplines, why would we teach them separately? Doesn't history teach more than just about humans? — TaySan

History, taking into account that it is independently developed by different cultures and different contexts, is part of anthropology as much as anthropology seems to be part of history.

How can we study Man without studying his history and vice versa?

It is rather limited if people do view history as if people in the past were always in worse conditions. — Jack Cummins

Ordinary people have no significant history knowledge for their lives. The masses are living in a constant present which is a full plate for their sovereigns.

There were difficult periods, such as th, but there were great civilisations in the past, especially the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians. — Jack Cummins

The point is that, with the advent of the philosophy of Hegel and Comte, the view that, scientifically and technologically, humanity has witnessed an increasing "progress", which has been happening since the beginning of civilization, has become the norm. If humanity is accompanied by a "growing progress", then all humans in all societies that came before us are more primitive than we are. This thought may seem seductive, however, if analyzed the history - which, both Hegel and Comte based their thoughts on to refute it - of Man, it is proofable that the human being does not exist in a constant "progress", much less will reach a "technological singularity" in the future - here, I'm refuting Hegel -.

Humanity moves through time randomly. The advances in the most diverse areas of knowledge, most of the times are made indirectly and without any focus on "progress" or "benefit of humanity" or "for the State", but for the individual will of Man.

Hegel constructed a whole thought centered on the "historical absolute" which was projected in the physical world through the State, more precisely, the "Prussian State". His philosophy ends with the argument that "History has already played its part in human existence", therefore, we currently live in a "post-history" period.

This - as it was refuted less than 10 years after his death by his young pupils - is completely erroneous. Hegel had ended up letting his ego run wild to the point that he had completely ignored his tripartite argument of "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis" simply because his nature needed him to be at a "peak point" of humanity.

Little did he know that his period had gone from being the synthesis of medieval germanic Christian society, to being the mere thesis, which would eventually result in the new synthesis - our period -. Therefore, it is visible that we, at this very moment, are the thesis of a new historical cycle.

With all this being put, the point is clear that the core of history can only be Man, and the center of Anthropology, History.

Therefore: History = Anthropology.

Hopefully, those who study history seriously wouldn't go by Hegel's ideas on history. I did an evening course in anthropology and it did approach the whole subject from a historical angle.I think it is always a bit of a distortion when the various disciplines are split off so clearly. Of course, it is not possible to study all the disciplines, but the ideal may be if people read outside of their own specialised fields. I believe that it's important to read as widely as possible and see all the crossovers in thinking rather than just view from a narrow angle.

Studying man without studying his history seems pretty pointless to me. We are history and we are our history.

Yet studying the universe or cosmos, and with that I mean everything in existence outside of Earth's atmosphere, is not linked to humans.

"The subjectivity of history, in a matter that in different periods and in different cultures, was conceived in a way that mirrors the morals and values ​​of that whole culture, does demonstrate, through a logical argument, that history as a concept, its nothing more than anthropology, as its study differs from people to people?" — Gus Lamarch

You may have answered your own question, about teaching History & Anthropology as different academic subjects : "History" (the story of humanity) studies human cultures as abstract whole systems, while "Anthropology" (the science of humanity) studies the individual parts (people) of those systems. So, History is a Humanities subject, while Anthro is a Science topic. History allows for some subjective philosophical conjectures about "why" certain events happened, while Anthro (as an empirical reductive science) tries to avoid such generalizing and speculation about essences. However, "Philosophical Anthropology" may be what you have in mind, since it seems to be a specialized form of History. :smile:


History : a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., usually written as a chronological account; chronicle:

Philosophical Anthropology : the study of the nature and essence of humankind.

Not really. One can be a historian of What without caring a whit about how things developed or how they work.