Glossary of Philosophical and Anthropological Terms
A
Accidental Property: Quality that completes or perfects an object or being but is not essential.
Acculturation: Process by which the members of a culture incorporate the features of a different culture.
Anthropocentrism: Doctrine that positions human beings at the center of philosophical reflection.
Anthropologic Dualism: Philosophical doctrine that claims that human beings are made up of two realities: body and mind.
Anthropomorphism: The attribution of human characteristics and properties to non-human entities.
Arche: According to the first Ancient Greek Philosophers, the substance that originated everything in nature.
Argumentation: Oral or written exposition in which reasons are given to defend a particular thesis.
Big Bang Theory: Cosmological theory that states that the universe began at a particular point in time. Since then, the Universe has been constantly expanding.
Bipedalism: Anatomical change of some hominids by which they stopped using four limbs to walk and began walking upright, using two legs.
Body: In humans, the visible, material entity that they have, as distinguished from mind or soul.
Butterfly Effect: Concept that states that a small change in an initial scenario may lead to alterations that cannot be predicted or calculated.
Causal Law: Scientific law that establishes the relationship between cause and effect.
C
Cause: Event or action capable of producing another different event, which is referred to as effect.
Chance: Event that occurs in a random manner.
Chaos: State of disorder previous to cosmos.
Character: Behavior that is the result of habits.
Cognitive Faculty: Humankind’s natural ability to develop knowledge.
Condensation: Physical process proposed by Anaximenes which explains why air can be transformed into other natural, denser realities such as clouds, water, etc.
Consciousness: Mental activity that enables humans to be aware of their existence.
Cosmology: Discipline that studies the universe.
Creationism: Religious belief that claims that God created all biological species.
Cultural Anthropology (Social Anthropology): Branch of anthropology that aims to understand human beings from a social and cultural perspective.
Cultural Relativism: Anthropological doctrine that denies the existence of universal cultural values.
Cultural Universal: Feature present in all human cultures worldwide.
Culture: Complex group of products resulting from human activity that occur within a particular society.
D
Death: Loss of all characteristics of living.
E
Emergentism: Philosophical doctrine that declares that the mind emerges as a result of brain activity.
Emic Description: Description of a cultural fact from the point of view of a member belonging to the culture itself. This description has to be made by an anthropologist.
Emotional Competence: Group of acquired habits, related to emotional intelligence, that generate a person’s ability to perform a professional task efficiently.
Emotional Intelligence: Ability to interact in a social context by expressing our own emotions in a balanced way and correctly interpreting the emotions of others.
Entropy: In any given system, physical quantity that measures the amount of thermal energy that cannot be transformed into mechanical energy.
Epistemological Relativism: Philosophical doctrine that denies the existence of a unique truth that is universally valid.
Epistemology: Philosophical study of knowledge.
Essence: Set of fundamental properties of a being.
Essential Property: Quality of a substance that makes it what it is.
Essentialism: Philosophical doctrine that claims that essences exist as separate realities, i.e., that they are independent from the individuals to whom they are attributed.
Ethnocentrism: Attitude resulting from believing that the group and culture to which oneself belongs is the standard to which must adjust other groups and cultures.
Evolution: Developmental process of living things or organisms.
Existence: The common characteristic of all beings.
F
Finalism: Philosophical doctrine that affirms that all natural changes have a purpose that has been predetermined.
Fixism: Theory that claims that all biological species are fixed and do not change. It opposes the theory of evolution.
Freedom: Human’s ability to choose from several options without being determined in favor of any of them.
G
Geocentrism: Conception of the universe in which the Earth occupies the center and is stationary.
Gnoseology: Area of philosophy that studies human knowledge.
H
Human Science: One of the two branches of the experimental sciences. It analyzes human-specific behavior and activities.
Humanisation: It refers to the behavioral changes experienced by the humans included in the hominisation process. These behavioral changes gave rise to present-day human behavior.
Humanism: Intellectual movement typical of the Renaissance that defended free spirit.
I
Inertia: Property of all bodies that keeps them at rest or in rectilinear motion, as long as that state is not changed by an external force.
K
Knowledge: Set of ideas obtained as a result of reflecting on information gathered in relation to a particular subject.
M
Magic: Practice based on the belief that certain humans have magical powers. This comes from believing that physical objects have human properties such as will or passion (this is animism).