Anthropology

Anthropology ( from ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος anthropos, human ', and λόγος lógos ' doctrine' ) is the study or science of man. It is understood in the German-speaking world and in many European countries, primarily as a natural science. The scientific anthropology (also Physical anthropology ) treats the body following the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin as a biological being.

This naturalistic view of man standing against various non- naturalistic approaches, such as the so-called philosophical anthropology. After a few of these teachings, the man from other organisms to differ qualitatively by his personality, that is, by the relative freedom of choice and the opportunity for self -determination. The actual existence of such properties is controversial.

The term anthropology goes back to the Leipzig philosopher, physician and theologian Magnus Hundt ( 1449-1519 ).

• 2.1 General
• 2.2 history
• 2.3 Comparative Anthropology
• 2.4 Educational Anthropology
• 2.5 Special Topics

Approaches and disciplines

Mental Scientific Approach

Cultural Anthropology

The cultural anthropology is an empirically based science of culture (in the sense of " human culture "). It developed in the 20th century from the folklore, has its focus in contrast to this, however. Intercultural, ethnological and sociological themes and models Among the anthropological disciplines cultural anthropology occupies a middle position between the biological and the philosophically oriented directions; it is taken on its range of topics most.

In German-speaking countries so far no precise definition of the research object has prevailed.

Legal Anthropology

The anthropology of law forms an independent sub-form of cultural anthropology. The legal anthropology examines the content and modes of legal structures of people of different cultural traditions of tribes and peoples. In addition, this term refers to a legal research direction, which is dedicated to the naturalen basic constants of legislation and case law. Here, the anthropology of law mainly deals with the ( Western democratic ) " human image of the Constitution ," the other hand, proceeds from the will of free and autonomy of our people. But she chooses mostly a pragmatic dual-track approach. The term culture, and occasionally the more political notion of civilization, then describes the social real world, in which man unites both perspectives.

Social Anthropology

The social anthropology is considered as the science of cultural and social diversity, or more generally as " the science of man in society ." It analyzes the social organization of the people. In German, the term was " social anthropology " a used since the 1960s term for the British social anthropology and the French anthropologie sociale and was abandoned in favor of the technical term ethnology. In recent years there has been a renaissance of anthropology - term observed that wants to take account of a world changed by transnationalization and globalization processes research landscape.

Industrial anthropology

The industry anthropology as a discipline of anthropology examines the usability (usability) and user-friendliness of jobs, control elements and products.

Philosophical Anthropology

Philosophical anthropology is the discipline of philosophy that deals with the nature of man. The modern philosophical anthropology is a very young professional philosophical movement that emerged only in the early 20th century as a reaction to the loss of orientation in the world.

Theological anthropology

The theological anthropology as part of the field of systematic theology interprets the people from a Christian theological perspective. She is particularly concerned with the nature of man and the destiny of man before God.

Historical Anthropology

Historical Anthropology denotes a trans-disciplinary research that examines the historical variability of basic phenomena of human existence.

Natural Scientific Approach

Biological Anthropology

Goal of biological anthropology with its subjects primatology, evolutionary theory, sports anthropology, paleoanthropology, population biology, industrial anthropology, genetics, growth ( Auxology ), Constitution and forensics is the description, root cause analysis and evolutionary interpretation of the diversity of biological characteristics of hominids ( family of the order Primates, the fossil and recent humans includes ). Their methods are both descriptive and analytical.

Biological anthropology is a sub-discipline of human biology. Institutions in the German-speaking countries there are at universities and museums in Tübingen, Kiel, Hamburg, Berlin, Göttingen, Jena, Giessen, Mainz, Ulm, Freiburg im Breisgau, Munich, Zurich and Vienna. Mostly there is only the name " anthropology ", accessories like were "organic" in recent times necessary because of the competing American concept of " anthropology " is also known.

Forensic Anthropology

Forensic anthropology is one of the three court of Human Sciences, in addition to the forensic medicine and forensic odontology.

Areas of forensic anthropology:

• Identification for images. Most cases handled involve offenses in traffic, so speeders and Rotmissachter, the spectacular cases relate to bank robbers or contemporary historical persons.
• Identification of skeletons and teilskelettierten corpses in mass graves
• Age diagnosis, especially in young offenders
• Parentage
• Twin diagnosis

Forensic anthropology is the means of Anthropology at the investigation of crimes. Forensic anthropologists have mainly to do with the identification of bank robbers, fast drivers etc., then often with highly decayed or completely skeletonized corpses. Often they are the last hope of solving a crime. In Germany there is a strong institutional dominance of the right medicine, but just that sometimes prevents access to the independent competence of anthropology.

Other and mixed forms

Cybernetic Anthropology

As cybernetic anthropology refers to the attempt of the terminological coupling of anthropology and cybernetics with the process to overcome the opposition between the natural and social sciences.

Educational Anthropology

The educational anthropology is the part of the educational field, which deals with the yield anthropological questions, access ways and the results within the pedagogy. Can be roughly distinguish two directions: The Real Anthropology is dedicated to the empirical observation of the reality of man under the focus, the results from the pedagogy. The sense anthropology asks about the meaning and objectives of human action that are incorporated into the educational context. The sense anthropology thus has special references to educational theory by shedding of a specific people depending image formation claims. It has a special closeness to the philosophical and theological anthropology within the different anthropologies. The Real anthropology is particularly close to the biological, besides also the philosophical anthropology.

The division continues in the distinction between inclusive and philosophical approaches. The integrative approaches attempt especially anthropological insights of various disciplines (especially biology, sociobiology, and so on ) to make it usable for educational issues. Representative of this approach include Heinrich Roth and Annette Scheunpflug. The philosophical approach has differentiated into different directions. So Otto Friedrich Bollnow approach consists in making anthropological questions ( for example about the nature of man and his destiny ) for educational contexts available. Similar to other authors he oriented himself in his work but also in the phenomenology. So he was not trying to win an image of man from philosophy (or about biology ) and evaluate educational, but the pedagogical action and occurring therein phenomena such as crisis or meeting devoted himself immediately in order to reflect as determinants of people. The man comes in these studies with regard to education in three roles before: as -parent, as a pupil and as a teacher.

In the more recent educational anthropology, on the one continues ( for example, in the consideration of more recent human medical results for pedagogy) the integrative approach. Philosophical anthropology is now increasingly continued as a historical educational anthropology, by reflecting that anthropological knowledge is gained both to certain people in certain eras based and from a specific historical per heading out and therefore can not claim general validity over time.

Anthropology in the Social Sciences

In the social sciences widespread is the notion that man 's nature in his drives and needs is indeterminate, so an orientation and stabilization of behavior and drive life can only arise in socialization processes. This image of man is the general anthropological prerequisite for the analysis of social processes, such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, George Herbert Mead and Talcott Parsons.

Moreover, there is in the social sciences two classic images of man that function as analytical and idealized models: the homo economicus economics and homo sociologicus sociology. A "realistic" version of the individualistic homo economicus is the RREEMM model of man, however, will continue to largely focus in social science theorizing because Operationalisierungsproblemen to the simpler models.

The concept of reflexive anthropology, the Gesa Lindemann has developed on the historically - reflexive anthropology Helmuth Plessner following, provides a novel relationship between anthropology and sociology. Anthropology and anthropological assumptions are not seen as socially theoretical foundation, but made ​​the subject of observation. In this approach, it comes to editing the question of how the social circle people is limited in societies and reaffirms the function of anthropology in modern times.

Psychological anthropology as an interdisciplinary approach

In the scheme used, the psychology of the people are not well accommodated, because the psychology combines humanities, biological, behavioral and social science concepts and methods. As a science of behavior and experience of people, including biological or neuroscientific foundations psychology is interdisciplinary from the outset. Because of this comprehensive overview on man's empirical psychology can fall into a particular tension with philosophical anthropology, which also has a comprehensive theoretical approach but able to integrate the empirical human sciences barely. Important issues of Psychological Anthropology are, inter alia, the human image, personality theories, the basics of motives, emotions in neurobiology and psychophysiology, the contributions of cognitive science, social psychology and cultural psychology, all areas of applied psychology and so on.

Anthropology as a generic term and roof Science

Sometimes " anthropology " understood as a generic term for several of the above-mentioned single and human sciences. Especially in the U.S. there are corresponding efforts, Biological Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Ethno linguistics and archeology unite under one roof ( interdisciplinarity ).

Systematic Anthropology, a 1977 published work by Wolfgang Rudolph ( anthropologist ) and Peter Tschohl brings anthropological fundamental insights in an integrated context. With the help of its own conceptual system a total anthropological model is developed, which dissolves the boundaries and intersections of disciplines such as anthropology, biology, human genetics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, history, theory. "The aim of the study is a scientific theory that covers that which systematically can be expected sense to a ' man ' mentioned object of study, and is therefore not dominated by a single discipline. " The investigation reveals the basis of the general conditions of complete reality the particular conditions of biotic and human range. For a globally oriented selection of studies was evaluated and developed from interdisciplinary system formulated theoretically consistent. That is a key study results in short form: " Anthropology is to explicate a theory of class existence, Human existence ' ME. She has so construed the vorverständlichen subject area human existence as class M and systematically stated. ' Subject is the human existence as empirically recordable fact. The theory then transported a progressive, humane and broad concept of culture. Because seemingly technocratic formulation but it was rezipiert only in the ethnological and sociological oriented art. Structure and content of the theory would have to be updated today, however, offer " a basis for detailed studies of any excerpts of the object of man."

The basic theory of anthropology is contextual knowledge, showing the relationships between the disciplines and schools of the human sciences. A frame of reference results from the four basic questions of biological research (after Nikolaas Tinbergen ): Causation ( = cause-and- effect relationships in the functional sequences ), ontogeny, adaptation, phylogeny. These four aspects are each at different levels of reference to be considered (see Nicolai Hartmann ), eg, cell, organ, individual, group:

The tabular orientation framework of basic questions and levels may be all anthropological questions (see PDF summary table, paragraph A), their results ( see table, section B) and assign special areas ( see table, section C ); it is the basis for structuring the results. Using the basis theory of anthropological research in theory and empirical research can be promoted and kept apart profound and speculative knowledge better (this relates to, for example, the school dispute in psychotherapy ).