The emergence of social anthropology from philosophy

pp. 95-106

in: I. C. Jarvie, Thinking about society, Berlin, Springer, 1986

Abstract

In a way, almost every 'subject-matter" now taught in the groves of academe has "emerged" from philosophy, if only because the Greek notion of philosophy was comprehensive. However, when Aristotle came to summarize the knowledge of the Greek world he wrote a Politics but did not write a Sociology or an Anthropology. This is puzzling, as it is not hard to show that his teacher Plato was a very sophisticated sociological thinker.¹ This being the case, should sociology and social anthropology be dated from Plato, or even from Herodotus? All such questions are an elaborate form of game—with rules, outcomes and pay-offs to suit the players. It certainly seems to me a preferable game to that in which the antecedents of sociology are traced to Comte because he coined the word.