Essential Questions
- ORIGINS- what did we come about, the nature of the transformation from one state of being into another, often framed in terms of "evolution" or "creation"- and as characterized in every origin account, the transformation is still in process and not completed, the answers to the essential questions still forthcoming
- EPISTEMOLOGY- how we come to know and understand our state of being, our reality, framed in terms of literal, metaphoric and anagogic approaches
- ONTOLOGY- what is the nature of our being, of reality it self - what is real - relating to such issues as "time," "space," "causation," and "truth"
Conclusion
What is ANTHROPOLOGY?
- the study of humankind, especially of Homo Sapiens, the biological species to which we human beings belong
- the study of how our species evolved from more primitive organisms
- the study of how our species developed a mode of communication known as language and a mode of social life known as culture
Boys taking part in a ritual to mark the transition to manhood, Malawi
Distinguishing Characteristics/ Nature of Anthropology
We are species driven by "questions."
- the study of how culture evolved and diversified
- the study of how culture, people, and nature Interact wherever human beings are found
- we all have "unresolved issues"
- there are no other species or beings in existence that are so burdened
NATURE OF ANTHROPOLOGY