Philosophical Concepts and Anthropological Theories
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 centre 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 in order 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.
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: behaviour 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…
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.
Death: loss of all characteristics of living.
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 in an efficient way.
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.
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.
Geocentrism: conception of the universe in which the Earth occupies the center and is stationary.
Gnoseology: area of philosophy that studies human knowledge.
Human Science: one of the two branches of the experimental sciences. It analyses human-specific behavior and activities.
Humanisation: it refers to the behavioral changes experienced by the humans included in the hominization process. These behavioral changes gave rise to present-day human behavior.
Humanism: intellectual movement typical of the Renaissance that defended free spirit.
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.
Knowledge: set of ideas obtained as a result of reflecting on information gathered in relation to a particular subject
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)
Monotheism: religious belief in the existence of only one God.
Multiculturalism: cultural phenomenon that involves the coexistence of cultural groups, which have very different origins, within the same society.
Myth: story that incorporates elements of fantasy to explain the origin of a natural or social reality.
Objective Knowledge: knowledge of reality as it really is, without being compromised or distorted by subjective knowledge.
Pantheism: philosophical doctrine that identifies God with Nature.
Person: individual substance of rational nature (Boetius)
Philosophical Anthropology: branch of anthropology that reflects on the most essential characteristics of human beings
Philosophy: a global understanding of reality given to us by a love of wisdom
Quantum Mechanics: contemporary physics theory that states that energy is released and absorbed in discrete (not continuous) quantities known as quanta
Renaissance: cultural movement of the XV and XVI centuries that advocated for a return to the values and tastes of classical Greco-Roman culture.
Ritual: ceremonial act that is generally linked to a belief of religion.
Sensation: one of the processes that form our sensory knowledge.
Sense: in the philosophy of language, sense refers to the way we conceive a thing represented by a linguistic expression.
Sensitivity: cognitive faculty that allows us to receive information from the outside world through the stimulation of the sense organs.
Social Anthropology: branch of anthropology that aims to understand human beings from a social and cultural perspective.
Soul: in dualistic theories, the immaterial part of a human that gives life to her.
Spirit: immaterial reality which, together with matter, constitutes the two types of reality that exist.
Teleology: type of explanation that links studied phenomena, processes and changes with a pre-established plan.
Theism: philosophical doctrine that affirms the existence of a supreme being.
Theocentrism: philosophical belief that places God at the center of philosophical reflection.
Theology: discipline that studies everything related to divinity.
Theoretical Reason: use of human reason for gaining knowledge.
Theory of Evolution: biological theory proposed by Ch. Darwin. The theory states that present-day biological species are the result of an evolutionary process, which, in turn, was the result of a fight for survival caused by overpopulation and a lack of available natural resources.
Transformism: biological theory proposed by Lamarck. According to this theory, all biological species naturally strive for perfection. Therefore, biological species are able to modify their own organism so they can be better adapted to the environment.
Understanding: capability of the human mind to make abstract concepts and judgments about reality.
Utopia: the term literally means ‘no place’. Since the time of Thomas More the term has come to refer to a non-existing society which is proposed as a model with which to compare real society in order to improve it.