Adolf Bastian facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Adolf Bastian
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Adolf Bastian, 1892
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| Born | 26 June 1826 |
| Died | 2 February 1905 (aged 78) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | anthropology |
| Influences | Johann Gottfried Herder |
| Influenced | Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Franz Boas |
Adolf Philipp Wilhelm Bastian (born June 26, 1826 – died February 2, 1905) was a very smart person from the 1800s. He knew a lot about many different subjects, which is why he is called a polymath. He is best known for helping to create the study of human cultures, called ethnography, and the wider field of anthropology.
Bastian's ideas also had a big impact on modern psychology. He came up with the idea of Elementargedanke (elementary ideas). This idea later helped Carl Jung develop his theory of archetypes, which are like universal patterns in the human mind. Bastian also influenced Franz Boas, who is often called the "father of American anthropology," and Joseph Campbell, who studied myths from around the world.
Life of Adolf Bastian
Adolf Bastian was born in Bremen, which was a state in Germany at the time. His family was wealthy and involved in business.
He studied many different subjects at university. He learned about law, biology, and medicine. He even earned a medical degree in 1850. While studying, he became very interested in 'ethnology', which was the study of different cultures.
After finishing his studies, Bastian became a ship's doctor. This job allowed him to travel all over the world for eight years! This was just the start of his travels, which lasted for about 25 years in total. When he returned to Germany in 1859, he wrote a popular book about his adventures. He also wrote a big three-volume book called Man in History, which became one of his most famous works.
In 1861, he went on another long trip, this time to Southeast Asia. He wrote six volumes about this journey, called The People of East Asia.
In 1866, Bastian moved to Berlin. There, he helped start an important journal about ethnology and anthropology called Zeitschrift für Ethnologie (ZfE). He also worked with Rudolf Virchow to create the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory.
In 1873, Bastian helped found the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and became its first director. This museum collected artifacts from cultures all over the world, becoming one of the largest collections of its kind. Young Franz Boas, who later became very famous in American anthropology, worked with him at the museum.
In the 1870s, Bastian traveled a lot again, visiting Africa and the New World (North and South America). He passed away in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in 1905, while on one of his many journeys.
Adolf Bastian's Ideas
Bastian is known for his idea of the 'psychic unity of mankind'. This means he believed that all humans, no matter where they live or what their culture is, share a basic way of thinking. This idea later influenced Carl Jung's concept of the collective unconscious, which suggests that all humans share some deep, inherited mental patterns.
Bastian also thought that the world could be divided into different 'geographical provinces'. He believed that each of these areas developed through similar stages of growth, like how a plant grows from a seed. He felt that new ideas and cultural traits didn't usually spread from one area to another. Instead, each region developed its own unique culture based on its environment.
Bastian saw himself as a very scientific person. He believed in observing things carefully rather than just thinking about them. Because of this, he didn't fully agree with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He felt that the physical changes in species hadn't been directly seen, even though Bastian himself believed human civilizations developed over time. He was also very focused on studying unusual cultures before they changed or disappeared due to contact with Western societies.
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Bastian's idea of "psychic unity of mankind" suggested a clear way to study human culture and how our minds work. He believed that how people think, no matter where they are, comes from the same basic ways our brains work. He thought that every human mind is born with a set of "elementary ideas" (Elementargedanken). This means that everyone's mind works in the same basic way, no matter their background.
However, Bastian also said that where you live and your history create different local versions of these "elementary ideas." He called these "folk ideas" (Völkergedanken). He also believed that societies develop over time, starting with simple ways of organizing themselves and becoming more complex.
Bastian thought that by collecting information about different cultures, we could learn about how the human mind develops. Even though he talked to individuals, he believed the real goal was to study the "folk ideas" or the "collective mind" of a whole group of people.
He felt that the more you study different peoples, the more you see that the "folk ideas" (which are shaped by history) are less important than the universal "elementary ideas." He compared an individual person to a cell in a body. A person's mind, with its "folk ideas," is shaped by their society. But the "elementary ideas" are the basic foundation from which these "folk ideas" grow. From this view, a social group has a kind of "group mind," or "societal soul" (Gesellschaftsseele), where each individual mind fits in.
These ideas of Bastian's were very important. They influenced later studies of psychological archetypes, how myths compare across cultures (comparative mythology), things that are common to all cultures (cultural universals), and how psychology differs or is similar across cultures (cross-cultural psychology).
Bastian believed that "elementary ideas" could be found by looking at "folk ideas," which are like different ways a group expresses its shared thoughts (Gesellschaftsgedanken). Since you can't directly see these shared thoughts, Bastian thought that studying cultures should follow five steps:
- Fieldwork: This means actually going and living among different non-European peoples to observe them, instead of just thinking about them from afar. Bastian himself spent much of his life doing this.
- Finding collective representations: From the information gathered in fieldwork, you can describe the shared ideas in a society.
- Analyzing folk ideas: These shared ideas are then broken down into smaller "folk ideas." Bastian noticed that certain regions often had similar patterns of "folk ideas," which he called "idea circles."
- Finding elementary ideas: When you see similarities between "folk ideas" or patterns of "folk ideas" across different regions, it points to the deeper "elementary ideas" that are common to all.
- Using scientific psychology: Studying these "elementary ideas" helps us understand the "psychic unity of mankind." This unity comes from the basic way all human brains are built. This study should be done using a truly scientific approach that looks at many different cultures.
Works
- Travels in Burma in the Years 1861–1862
- Travels in Siam in the Year 1863
- Travels in China...
- Die deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste (1874)
See also
In Spanish: Adolf Bastian para niños
