The generation of the 1850s

At the end of the nineteenth century, two options were available in the human sciences. On one side, a natural-science model that sought explanations and universal laws; on the other, a pluralist, essentialist option that sought to interpret multiple wholes. For the first, language differences were epiphenomena to be ignored or corrected. For the second, they were the sign of the multiplicity of worlds constituted by different peoples and cultures. All agreed that peoples, cultures, languages, and, for most, races could be ranked, thus saving even the essentialists from drifting into absolute relativism. All agreed that their domains had clear centers in regard to which others could be ranked, whether it be the conscious speaking subject, the highly evolved (male) European, or the worthy (male) representative of his Volk.

Early in the twentieth century, these centers were displaced with the rise of new disciplines with different assumptions. To a large degree, these were the creations of scholars born during the second half of the 1850s. Boas (born 1858) was a near contemporary of other revolutionaries: Freud (1856–1939), Saussure (1857–1913), Durkheim (1858–1917), Planck (1858–1947), Husserl (1859–1938).