‘Pushing the limits of understanding’: the discourse on primitivism in German Kulturwissenschaften, 1880–1930

This paper addresses the significance of primitivism as a figure of thought during the emergence of Kulturwissenschaften—consisting of different fields of knowledge and disciplines—in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century. Two interrelated problems in particular shaped the scholarly discourse on primitivism: first, the question of the existence and modes of operation of ‘other’ forms of thought and consciousness. Second, the epistemological question how these ‘other’ forms of thought could be recognized if the researcher him or herself belonged to a particular historically determined European mode of thought and perception. In this context the art of non-European ‘primitives’ and of the insane became a central topic. Its cross-disciplinary investigation ultimately arrived at a redefinition of a nexus of problems: the challenge to the old concept of art as well as to the dominant concept of psychopathology, that is, the definition of normality and deviancy. Both the non-European ‘natives’ and the European ‘insane’ received new importance as scientific objects for a wider range of fields of knowledge. This process was connected with an articulated need to expand and strengthen the faculty of subjectivity and intuition on the part of the Kulturwissenschaftler for means of investigation and understanding (verstehen). The discourse on primitivism in German Kulturwissenschaften reflected the crisis of knowledge and methology at the beginning of the twentieth century and was finally resolved by taking refuge in phenomenology and holism.