Cultural Anthropology

Question 0

Define idealism

Answer 0

The philosophical view (dating back as far as Plato in western thought) that ideas- or the mind that produces such ideas- constitute the essence of human nature. That the true nature of human beings is spiritual, not material; the body is a material impediment that frustrates the full development of the mind or spirit.

Question 1

Define dualism

Answer 1

The philosophical view that reality consists of two equal and irreducible forces. Example- mind and matter, soul and body, or spirit and flesh.

Question 2

Define materialism

Answer 2

The philosophical view that the activities of our physical bodies in the material world constitute the essence of human nature.

Question 3

Define Determinism

Answer 3

The philosophical view that one simple force (or a few simple forces) causes (or determines) complex events.

Question 4

Define Essence

Answer 4

An unchanging core of features that is unique to the things of th same kind (whether they are chairs, cows, ideas, or people) and makes them what they are.

Question 5

Define holism

Answer 5

A perspective on the human condition that assumes that the mind and body, individual and society, and individual and environment interpenetrate and even define one another.

Question 6

Define co-evolution

Answer 6

The relationship between biological processes and symbolic cultural processes in which each makes up an important part of the environment to which the other must adapt.

Question 7

Define anthropology

Answer 7

The integrated study of human nature, human society, and human history.

Question 8

Define comparative

Answer 8

A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to consider similarities and differences in a wide a range of human societies before generalizing about human nature, human society, or human history.

Question 9

Define Biological evolution

Answer 9

Evolution of the resources for human development provided by our genres and other elements that make up our physical bodies.

Question 10

Define Cultural evolution

Answer 10

Evolution of the beliefs and behaviours we incorporate into human development through the experiences of teachings and learning.

Question 11

Define evolutionary

Answer 11

A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to place their observations about human nature, human society, or human history in a temporal framework that takes into consideration change over time.

Question 12

Define biological (or physical) anthropology

Answer 12

The speciality of anthropology that looks at humans as biological organisms and tries to discover what characteristics make us different from and/or similar to other living things.

Question 13

Define races

Answer 13

Social groupings that allegedly reflected biological differences.

Question 14

Define racism

Answer 14

The systematic oppression of members of one or more socially defined ‘races’ by members of another socially defined ‘race’ that is justified within the ruling society by the rulers’ faulty belief in their own biological superiority

Question 15

Define primatology

Answer 15

The study of non-human primates, closest living relatives of human beings.

Question 16

Define paleoanthropology

Answer 16

The study of the fossilized remains of human beings’ earliest ancestors.

Question 17

Define Archaeology

Answer 17

The speciality of anthropology interested in what we can learn from material remains left behind by earlier human societies.

Question 18

Define language

Answer 18

The system of arbitrary vocal symbols we use to encode our experiences of world and one another.

Question 19

Define linguistic anthropology

Answer 19

The speciality of anthropology concerned with the study of human languages.

Question 20

Define Cultural anthropology

Answer 20

The speciality of anthropology that studies how variation in beliefs and behaviours is shaped by culture and learned by different members of human groups.

Question 21

Define culture

Answer 21

Sets of learned behaviours and ideas that human acquire as members of a society. We use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which we live.