The Concept of Culture*

V IRTUALLY all cultural anthropologists take it for granted, no doubt, that is the basic and central concept of their science. There is, however, a disturbing lack of agreement as to what they mean by this term. To some, is learned behavior. To others, it is not behavior at all, but an abstraction from behavior-whatever that is. Stone axes and pottery bowls are to some anthropologists, but no material object can be to others. exists only in the mind, according to some; it consists of observable things and events in the external world to others. Some anthropologists think of as consisting of ideas, but they are divided upon the question of their locus: some say they are in the minds of the peoples studied, others hold that they are in the minds of ethnologists. We go on to culture is a psychic defense mechanism, culture consists of n different social signals correlated with m different responses, culture is a Rohrschach of a society, and so on, to confusion and bewilderment. One wonders what physics would be like if it had as many and as varied conceptions of energy! There was a time, however, when there was a high degree of uniformity of comprehension and use of the term culture. During the closing decades of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, the majority of cultural anthropologists, we believe, held to the conception expressed by E. B. Tylor, in 1871, in the opening lines of Primitive Culture: Culture ... is 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. Tylor does not make it explicit in this statement that is the peculiar possession of man; but it is therein implied, and in other places he makes this point clear and explicit (Tylor 1881:54, 123, where he deals with the great mental gap between us and the animals). Culture, to Tylor, was the name of all things and events peculiar to the human species. Specifically, he enumerates beliefs, customs, objects-hatchet, adze, chisel, and so onand techniques-wood-chopping, fishing..., shooting and spearing game, fire-making, and so on (Tylor 1913:5-6). The Tylorian conception of prevailed in anthropology generally for decades. In 1920, Robert H. Lowie began Primitive Society by quoting Tylor's famous definition. In recent years, however, conceptions and definitions of have multiplied and varied to a degree. One of the most highly favored of these is that is an abstraction. This is the conclusion reached by Kroeber and Kluckhohn in their exhaustive review of the subject: Culture: