A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays: [1944]

Part 1 A Scientific Theory of Culture; Chapter I Culture as the Subject of Scientific Investigation; Chapter II A Minimum Definition of Science for the Humanist; Chapter III Concepts and Methods of Anthropology; Chapter IV What is Culture?; Chapter V Theory of Organized Behavior; Chapter VI The Concrete Isolates of Organized Behavior; Chapter VII The Functional Analysis of Culture; Chapter VIII What is Human Nature?; Chapter IX The Derivation of Cultural Needs; Chapter X Basic Needs and Cultural Responses; Chapter XI The Nature of Derived Needs; Chapter XII The Integrative Imperatives of Human Culture; Chapter XIII The Instrumentally Implemented Vital Sequence; Part 2 The Functional Theory; Chapter Ia Embryology and Obstetrics; Chapter IIa General Axioms of Functionalism; Chapter IIIa Function Defined; Chapter IVa The Rough Approach to Functionalism; Chapter Va The Legitimate Isolates of Cultural Analysis; Chapter VIa The Structure of an Institution; Chapter VIIa The Concept of Function; Chapter VIIIa The Theory of Needs; Chapter IXa Conclusions; Part 3 Sir James George Frazer: A Biographical Appreciation; Introduction; Chapter Ib The Paradox of Frazer’s Personality and Work; Chapter IIb Frazer’s Position in the Development of Ethnological Theory; Chapter IIIb Critical Analysis of Some Special Theories; Chapter IVb Whither Anthropology?;

Bronislaw Malinowski, Huntington Cairns

Published, posthumously, this volume is both a summing up and a reformulation of Malinowski's functional theory of culture.