Kroeber (Kgoebeg) Alfred Louis

(1876-1960) - Amer. anthropologist, cultural studies, ethnologist, the representative of 'History. Schools' in Amer. Ethnology. In 1892, attended Columbia University Press, was a student of Boas. In 1902 he defended his Doctor. dis. anthropology at Columbia University are. In 40-50-ies. was one of the most respected and influ-yat. anthropologists in the U.S.. He has made a huge contribution to the establishment of the Academy, anthropology and development anthropology. Education in America: the founder of one of the largest anthropological. Museums (now - in Berkeley) and one of the first f-ing anthropology - University of California-cho. Distinguished by a broad range of scientific interests, to. significantly enriched all areas of anthropology. Research (theor. anthropology Financials. anthropology, ethnography, archeology, linguistics). He penned more than 500 publications. Basic Fixes. D: 'Anthropology: race, language, culture, psychology, prehistory', 1923; 'Reference Guide to the Indians of California', 1925 'Configurations of cultural growth', 1944, 'Nature of Culture', 1952, 'Style and Civilization', 1957.
The nature of culture - one of the key themes in the works to. Culture he understood as a universal, obschechelovech. phenomenon. Each CONCRETE. culture, in every CONCRETE. cultural phenomenon is always something unique and unrepeatable, but at the same time something in common (ODA. models, patterns, cultural forms). While the subject of scientific study should be CONCRETE. culture, the purpose of scientific research ultimately is to detect common patterns, ie. general properties of culture in general. This requires sravnit.analiza.

Culture was considered to. as a special reality, which has its own special nature and the subordination of his own. determinism. This theory. position, establishing the irreducibility of cultural phenomena of the lower orders (biol., psychological., social, etc.), is reflected in the concept kreberovskoy 'sverhorganicheskogo'.

In a bit of work Types of Indian Culture in California ', 1904, TO. first used the concept of 'cultural area' as a tool of analysis, as between the ranges, there can be clear, sharply defined borders. If a broad cultural context of the habitats can be considered as integrity, possessing the means set of features in common, then a closer look, they represent a thing heterogeneous and can be divided into subarealy. Cultural area is closely tied to natural habitats, this idea K., permeates many of his works, lets take it to one of the founders of the cultural ecology. Researchers. perspective, singled cultural area on the basis of more or less united by their common culture, allowed to. examine the cultural field as integrity, pushing into the background differences in private elements (holistsky approach). Basic Fixes. subject of interest to him were 'patterns', 'configuration' of culture (K. first introduced the concept of anthropology in the 'configuration'), in later works in a similar sense to use the concept of 'style'.

Common patterns were not unique cultures by itself, but also the trajectories of their history. development - this is dedicated to fundamental work to. 'Configurations of cultural growth', which addresses the problems of history. changing cultures and neck-ryh from their ERP. systems (philosophy, science, art, etc.), configuration and fluctuations in their development. Considering the cultural system as the integrity, K. subjected to study periods of birth, growth, flowering and decline. Culminating periods of development refers to them as the deployment of capabilities embedded in the relevant cultural pattern, when the possibility of the pattern have been exhausted, begins a period of decline of culture.

After a thorough analysis of the history. development of the world's major crops (egip., whale., Jpn., ind., Greek., Rome., Europe. etc.), K. concluded that, despite the presence of ODA. commonalities, cultural development is not subject to rigorous and unambiguous rules: and the trajectory of development, and duration of various phases of development may vary. For example, the duration of creative. period averages about 300 years, but may vary from 150 to 400 years. The culmination of cultural development can occur repeatedly, for example., Egypt. civilization experienced four climactic period. In some cultures, their height can occur in some areas of cultural activities, etc.. cultures - in other. Eg., Egypt. and Japanese. Culture is not made outstanding achievements in the field of philosophy, and Arabic has not set up high-creations in sculpture.

Their height in Economy. and his political life, as a rule, do not coincide in time with the flourishing of cultural life. Moreover, the history. Experience shows that the period of political and economical. power of a civilization can not accompanied by any significant cultural achievements.

Having lived through the heyday, the culture is not doomed to die (as he supposed, for example., Spengler), as evidenced by the example of the same egip. culture, to-heaven repeatedly reached the peak periods of cultural development.

To. concluded that the absence in the development of crops of any kind was hard cyclic. regularities; is untenable, he believed, and the hypothesis of a linear progress. Studies to. largely refuted the speculation of the theory of cyclic. Development Spengler. In the treatment of C., . Culture is a much more flexible and mobile nature: it can absorb the elements and whole complexes of elements from other cultures, . able to resume its growth after periods, . seemingly, . inevitable decline, . transform the existing and produce new cultural patterns,
.

To. wary about attempts to build on the anthropology of Psychology. grounds taken in the direction of 'culture-and-personality'.

Meanwhile, in 1918-20 it was he who first introduced amer. anthropological. the public with the psychoanalytic theory (for reviews of the book 'Totem and Taboo' Freud and the neck-ryh works of Jung). Moreover, he himself did not avoid dragging psychoanalysis: underwent psychoanalysis, and even worked as a practicing psychoanalyst in San Francisco in 1921-23.