Are Instincts Data or Hypotheses

Bibliographic Data

ID2195689
AuthorsEllsworth Faris (corresponding author)
Year1921
Volume27
Issue2
Pages184-196
Publication date1921-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/213303
OpenAlexW2032375671
LanguageEN
Citations received10

Lack of agreement concerning instincts.-William James made current the doctrine that man has more instints than the animals. Later discussion has revealed much disagreement concerning the definition of instincts and even more uncertainty concerning their number. Lists range from forty, thirty, twenty-six, twenty, fifteen, to four, two and one. The confusion is probably due to tye hypothetical nature of instincts. The genetic explanation of instincts.-The genetic explanation is a sort of mythological effort and has resulted in rather ludicrous stories which pass as explanations. The corrective lies in the study of ethnology by which a comparison of different human customs will reveal the fact that much which seemed at first to be native is really the result of social customs. Instincts are hypotheses: social attitudes are data.-Instincts emphasize similarities which often have no existece. Sociology has at hand empirical data in the form of attitudes, desires, and wishes, whose classification and explanation should be one of its chief concerns. Temperament.-The study of temperamental attitudes is far more profitable for social psychology, for, while temperament is also a hypothesis, it is a necessary one and its concerns individual differences which are of most importance in dealing with problems of personality

Doctrine · Economics · Epistemology · Instinct · Mythology · Personality · Political science · Positive economics · Sociobiology · Temperament · Cultural Differences and Values · Ecology · Emotional Intelligence and Performance · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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