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Appendix 1 A Discussion of Theoretical Issues The central thesis of this study could be wrong.1 This acknowledgment, however, does not weaken the strength of the reasoning found herein. On the contrary, the recognition of its potential fallibility should strengthen the argument. I have attempted to state the terms of reasoning within these pages in ways that are potentially refutable and disprovable . This approach is the nature of empiricism, and it should be the character of historical scholarship as well. The strength in this method lies in its ability to allow for the establishment of reasoned or logical truth and, therefore, to the attainment of historical truth in the theoretical sense. The ongoing quibble among historians over the nature of facts and of truth is unnecessary and widely misses the mark, for past events are no longer concrete and can neither be reproduced nor tested. Only after the burning issue of the nature of historical facts is put aside can historians get down to the real business of interpreting the past in an empirical manner. Instead of worrying about the truth of facts, historians should be focused more on general methodology that embraces the tenets of empiricism, especially the criterion of disprovability. The validity of various “facts” or propositions can be established only after this type of approach is established.2 One of the more ethereal aims of this book is to demonstrate an approach to understanding past events that embraces basic empiricism. A problem with the study of human history is that historians have to rely on the senses of subjects and informants who are usually long dead by the time their observations are scrutinized in a scholarly fashion. Besides this concern, the issue of whether or not various subjects and informants can be considered reliable sources muddles the ability of scholars to reconstruct past reality. To know exactly how past human events came about is practically an impossible task since they involved an incomprehensibly vast amount of variables.3 So far, it is inconceivable that anyone could account for all the variables that interacted to bring about a single historical event such as Corté’s conquest of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521. Historians have generally explained why historical events occurred by demonstrating how they came about. A fuller understanding of Comanche history, however, requires the comprehension of information beyond a chronological narrative of events. Narrative alone is not sufficient to answer important questions concerning the fundamental motivation behind the behavior of individual Comanches at particular moments in the past. Although historians have outlined the general chronology of Comanche history, anthropologists have stood out in the discussion concerning the theoretical aspects of the 145 Comanche past since the early part of the twentieth century. Cultural determinism, or the belief that all human behavior is the result of cultural conditioning, was originally theorized by anthropologist Franz Boas and has since formed the conceptual foundation for all subsequent interpretations of the development of Indian cultural and historical behavior . The idea of cultural determinism was influenced by Immanuel Kant’s postulate that human beings have the capacity to construct the character of themselves and their societies and by an intense distaste for the fashionable evolutionist anthropology at the turn of the twentieth century. Boas suggested that culture did not result from the innate qualities of human beings but that it emerged from external conditions that acted upon human attributes . He further argued that culture was in no way influenced by biology. Rather, culture represented a response of human beings to influences of the surrounding environment .4 History and nature acted as a powerful inspiration to the development of human cultures, giving rise to distinctive group behaviors. Ultimately, this approach to understanding human behavior completely overcame any form of biological comprehension of human nature and has generally flourished within the social sciences and humanities. Unfortunately, cultural determinism eschewed the tenets of scientific rationality, and it is inherently flawed as a means of interpreting human behavior and cultures. The rejection of the empirical approach by cultural determinists has prevented them from acknowledging cases of negative examples that refute proposed hypotheses. Instead, such contrary evidence has been viewed simply as an exception to accepted hypotheses and models. The analytical shortcomings of cultural determinism have obscured a clear understanding of Comanche culture and history. The debate over the nature of Comanche culture and history has revealed the deficiencies of cultural deterministic reasoning. When anthropologists compared Comanches with other Plains Indians, they found that...

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