Dilthey's Dream: Essays On Human Nature And Culture

Dilthey’s Dream ESSAYS ON HUMAN NATURE AND CULTURE DEREK FREEMAN Foreword by James J. Fox Dilthey’s Dream Dilthey’s Dream ESSAYS ON HUMAN NATURE AND CULTURE DEREK FREEMAN Foreword by James J. Fox PANDANUS BOOKS Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY © Pandanus Books 2001 This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. Typeset in Garamond 10.5pt on 14pt by Pandanus Books and printed on A2 Matt Art 115gsm by Elect Printers, Canberra phone 02 6280 6925. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Freeman, Derek (John Derek), 1916–2001. Dilthey’s dream: essays on human nature and culture. ISBN 1 74076 012 3. 1. Ethnology. 2. Human behavior. 3. Nature and nurture. 4. Social evolution. 5. Anthropology. I. Title. 301 Editorial enquiries please contact Pandanus Books on 02 6125 3269 Published by Pandanus Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Pandanus Books are distributed by UNIREPS, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052 Phone 02 9664 0999 Fax 02 9664 5420 Production: Ian Templeman, Duncan Beard and Emily Brissenden Foreword JAMES J. FOX An Introduction to a Dream Derek Freeman chose the title Dilthey’s Dream for this collection of essays and in the first essay of the volume, ‘Human Nature and Culture’, he explains the significance of this choice of titles. Dilthey’s dream offers a vivid metaphor for the fundamental fissure, which had begun to develop in the nineteenth century, between naturalist and idealist modes of inquiry in the human sciences. Throughout the twentieth century, this fissure has become a widening gulf and it was to bridge this gulf that Freeman devoted much of his research career. In the six elegant essays that comprise this volume, Freeman offers critical arguments for an alternative — ‘interactionist’ — paradigm for social inquiry. Written at intervals over a period of more than 30 years, these essays — each of which was delivered as a public lecture — mark the progressive articulation of his thinking and his attempt to give an intellectual context to his ideas. The paradigm that he sets forth is intended to constitute a new ‘science of human values’ firmly grounded in an evolutionary understanding of human nature but recognising individuals’ capacities for choice and the consequences of these choices for the adaptive diversity of the human species. vi FOREWORD At the time when he began to develop his ideas, Freeman was a lone voice in Australian anthropology arguing for the vigorous engagement of anthropology with the biological sciences. His starting point was a rejection of what he regarded as a dominant ‘culturalist’ perspective, which he ascribed to Franz Boas’ influence on American anthropology. It is important to recognise that the critical first essay in this volume was written in 1969. It contains, in embryo, many of the ideas Freeman was to develop over the next 30 years. There is thus a remarkable intellectual consistency in the critique of Boas’ cultural determinism in the first essay of the volume and his historical analysis of the influence of ‘Boasian culturalism’ in the final essay. Those readers who are chiefly familiar with Freeman because of the controversy that arose through his criticism of Margaret Mead’s research on Samoa may not fully appreciate that, from the outset, Freeman’s primary focus was always directed to the ideas of her teacher, Franz Boas. Freeman saw Mead’s first youthful monog