(2001) JLP 46: 115-120

CORRECTIONS OF A REAPPRAISAL OF LEOPOLD POSPISIL

Leopold Pospisil

Abstract

This is a reply to certain aspects of Mark Ryan Goodale, ‘Leopold Pospisil: A Reappraisal’, Journal of Legal Pluralism 40: 123-149 (1998) by the subject of that paper. It is argued that Goodale’s limitation of his discussion to two books and one article by the writer produces erroneous assumptions about and criticisms of the writer’s work. It is suggested that the lack of appreciation of his work among American anthropologists is not a result of his self-assured style but of an unwillingness to accept the challenge of his insistence that ethnologists must study cultures other than their own and must acquire a full knowledge of the culture and language of the culture studied, and of his criticism of those who follow fashionable ‘-isms’.