University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  

expand sectionII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
collapse sectionV. 
  
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIII. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionVII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionVI. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionI. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionIV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionII. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionV. 
expand sectionIV. 

8. Wholes and Patterns. The theory of Volksgeist
was an attempt to understand cultures and civilizations
as wholes and to point to empirical data as interrelated
in these wholes. It was an attempt to identify the whole
with a historical people. In this sense it guided empiri-
cal and anthropological research. The direction of
recent anthropological research retains the idea of a
whole but replaces it with an idea of a whole as a
pattern or structure related to civilizations and not to
peoples; wholes are not principles operating in civili-
zations but structures of interrelated elements present
in them. This might be looked at as a turn away from
the mythological understanding of a whole to the sys-
tematic understanding of it. Still, the rejection of
“rationalism” in politics as advocated by Michael
Oakeshott and the acceptance of the “tradition” as the
guiding norm of politics, are echoes of the concept
of Volksgeist in its normative if not in its descriptive
sense.