In memoriam Alfred Louis Kroeber. Notitie over leven en werk

Samenvatting

The essay is an evaluation of the scientific work of Prof. Kroeber who died last year. Its aim is to show how his studies of the theory of culture are related with the practical aspects of historic approach. The importance of his essay on the „Super-organic” is stressed, which introduced his postulate of the automous reality of all cultural phenomena and his definition of the historic approach which „preserves" its phenomena in their context by „descriptive integration”. In his empiric study of cultural phenomena his two-sided concern with world-wide reconstruction of the history of cultures and with the morphology of culture-patterns is sketched. It is contended that both in his spatial-static and his diachronic-dynamic reconstruction of cultural phenomena his method is similar. He built culture-traits and historic facts into complexes and patterns which he used to prove either a historic relationship between cultures or the profile of a culture pattern. And even where he made use of historic personalities he was not concerned with the accidents and individuals in history as such. The author sees a relation between Kroeber’s characteristic use of the concept of culture in the „Super-organic” and his interest in culture patterns and large-scale historical relationship between cultures. Kroeber avoided the manifest dangers of his approach to history by the modesty with which he used his method. He enriched the study of manking by the broad perspectives which he offered to its history.