ABSTRACT
This essay differs from others insofar as the two works analyzed in the chapter were produced by psychologists rather than anthropologists. However, both authors were deeply influenced by anthropology and participated in seminars and research ventures with the anthropological discipline. F. C. Bartlett was the founder and dean of British social psychology; Abram Kardiner was a practicing and teaching psychiatrist at Columbia University (where he came into association with Ralph Linton and his students). The chapter therefore has two dimensions: the first is an examination of the interface between psychology and anthropology; the second is historical: the Bartlett book pertains to the early Classic; the Kardiner, the middle and late Classic. The central issue, of course, is the problem of disciplinary interaction: the difficulties experienced by two separate disciplines, with their own interests and terminology—not to mention views of human nature—in getting together and creating a synthesis. It is assumed that by patching social-behavioral disciplines together, one enlarges knowledge. So far as I am concerned, the jury is still out on this issue. There is no doubt that disciplinary cooperation can help solve certain problems, since disciplines have a way of ignoring data: what is my independent variable is your dependent, and vice versa. But whether the cooperative solution of specific problems feeds a larger knowledge or image of human nature is undetermined. Some believe the more information we have about human behavior, the more complex the picture becomes. Perhaps the more we know, the more pessimistic the image becomes and the less willing we are to face up to it.
