Tylor's Classic Definition

For more than a century culture has been the pivotal concept in cultural anthropology, especially in North America. However, it was the pioneer British anthropologist, Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917), who first defined culture in an anthropological sense at the beginning of his 1871 book Primitive Culture as:

"... that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."

Commentary

The essential elements of Tylor's classic definition may be elucidated by rephrasing it in contemporary language:

Culture is a complex and dynamic system of habitual ideas, actions, and their material products which is socially patterned and learned as well as customarily shared by the members of a human society.

In the above sense, culture in general is an attribute of the human species (Homo sapiens); that is, of all normal human beings and societies. However, at another level, that of population, each society is distinguished by its own particular culture. Thus, today there are between 6,000 to 7,000 distinctive cultures remaining in the world, although the majority are increasingly threatened or endangered. Each particular culture was considered by anthropologists to be a unique and equally worthy variation on the universal themes of culture in general. That is, all cultures have economic, social, political, religious, and aesthetic ideas and practices. This cultural relativism is in essence a democratization of culture. Accordingly, American anthropologists like Franz Boas (1858-1942) and his students constructed the pluralistic and relativistic concept of culture as a critical and crucial alternative to unilinear evolutionism and "scientific" racism. (For an extensive analysis of definitions of culture see Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952).

There are, however, complexities and difficulties with the idea of culture, and at least the main ones should be cited here. First, anthropologists no longer view cultures as necessarily discrete, bounded, homogeneous, and stable systems. Second, societies are increasingly multicultural (or better, multiethnic) as are individuals, given the disintegration of whatever degree of isolation may have existed previously among societies. Third, in many ways globalization is a force of cultural homogenization, although often it appears to be mostly superficial. Finally, anthropologists differ as to whether they concentrate on material and/or mental aspects of culture, and whether they can scientifically explain or only humanistically interpret aspects. Still others, so-called postmodernists, pursue a more politicized approach to culture as contested constructions of identities. Yet others, like some British social anthropologists and sociobiologists, may even deny that culture has any significance. Unfortunately, some adherents to these various approaches go to the extreme of viewing their own as exclusively valid and useful, one way of fueling careerism, but at the expense of promoting understanding.

In conclusion, culture remains an important and useful concept for most anthropologists, especially in North America, even though some have critically challenged it in recent decades.

References

Barnard, Alan, and Jonathan Spencer, 1996, "Culture," Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer, New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 136-142.

Bidney, David, 1967, Theoretical Anthropology, New York, NY: Shocken Books.

Borofsky, Robert, ed., 1994, Assessing Cultural Anthropology, New York, NY: McGaw-Hill.

Carrithers, Michael, 1992, Why Humans Have Culture: Explaining Anthropology and Diversity, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Carrithers, Michael, 1997, "Culture," The Dictionary of Anthropology, Thomas Barfield, ed., Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 98-101.

Gamst, Frederick C., and Edward Norbeck, eds., 1979, The Idea of Culture: Sources and Uses, New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Geertz, Clifford, 1973, The Interpretation of Culture, New York, NY: Basic Books.

Goodenough, Ward, 1996, "Culture," Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, David Levinson and Melvin Ember, eds., New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 1:291-299.

Harris, Marvin, 1968, The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture, New York, NY: Thomas Crowell.

Harris, Marvin, 1979, Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture, New York, NY: Random House.

Keesing, Roger M., 1974, "Theories of Culture," Annual Review of Anthropology 3:73-97.

Kroeber, Alfred L., 1952, The Nature of Culture, Cicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Kroeber, Alfred L., and Clyde Kluckhohn, 1952, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, New York, NY: Random House.

Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1944, A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Moore, Jerry D., 1997, Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

Sahlins, Marshall, 1976, Culture and Practical Reason, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Stocking, George W., Jr., 1968, "Franz Boas and the Culture Concept in Historical Perspective," American Anthropologist 68:867-882.

Turner, Terence, 1993, "Anthropology and Multiculturalism: What is Anthropology that Multiculturalists Should be Mindful of it?, Cultural Anthropology 8(4):411-429.

Tylor, Edward B., 1871, Primitive Culture, London, England: Murray, 2 volumes.

Tylor, Edward B., 1881, Anthropology: Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization, New York, NY: Appleton.

White, Leslie E., 1959, The Evolution of Culture, New York, NY: Grove Press.