Part One - The Early History of Anthropological Theory

4A - Aggregate

A collection of entities that come together for a purpose. Aggregates have both a whole and constituent parts. For Spencer and other early social theorists, a crucial question was whether the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

6F - Happiness

A desirable state of being that according to Freud is impossible to achieve because civilization thwarts the expression of libidinous desires. Freud believed that people can maximize their contentment by abandoning what he called the pleasure principle and adopting what he called the reality principle, in the mature realization that they can never be truly happy. "Immaturity" is especially prone to persist in the arena of human sexuality.

5F - Quadruped

A four-legged animal, such as the primate Darwin thought was ancestral to humanity. Biological anthropologists have long sought to understand how primate quadrupedalism evolved into human bipedalism. Current thinking invokes knuckle walking, arm swinging, or arm hanging as possible intermediate stages.

9I - Synchronic Law

A law applying to contemporaneous events. In linguistics, Saussure contrasted synchronic laws, which are ahistorical and became the basis of structural linguistics. The distinction between diachronic and synchronic perspectives has broad application in anthropological theory.

9A - Diachronic Law

A law applying to events through time, or an historical law. In linguistics, Saussure contrasted diachronic laws with synchronic laws, or laws applying to contemporaneous events. Saussure's great contribution to linguistics was to call attention to synchronic laws, notably laws pertaining to linguistic signs, which became the basis of structural linguistics.

6E - God

According to Charles Darwin, a supernatural, beneficent creator widely believed by people, but not animals, to exist; according to Freud, a supernatural entity on whom people project their unattainable and forbidden wishes as cultural ideals. In many quarter's, Darwin's theory of evolution remains highly controversial because of its perceived conflict with "creationist" views of human origins, including "Intelligent Design," although Darwin's own views on religion were more congenial than many of his detractors might think. Freud theorized that God, and religions in general, embody moral qualities and codes that civilization devises to keep socially disruptive individual libidinous urges in check; in keeping with his patriarchal outlook in society, he represented God as a male, in particular a father, figure.

5B - God

According to Darwin, a supernatural, beneficent creator widely believed by people, but not animals, to exist; according to Sigmund Freud, a supernatural entity on whom people project their unattainable and forbidden wishes as cultural ideals. In many quarter's, Darwin's theory of evolution remains highly controversial because of its perceived conflict with "creationist" views of human origins, including "Intelligent Design," although Darwin's own views on religion were more congenial than many of his detractors might think. Freud theorized that God, and religions in general, embody moral qualities and codes that civilization devises to keep socially disruptive individual libidinous urges in check; in keeping with his patriarchal outlook in society, he represented God as a male, in particular a father, figure.

5G - Races

According to Darwin, distinctive groups of humanity thought to have evolved primarily by sexual selection. Racial distinctions are a long-standing subject of discussion and debate within anthropology. Contrasted with the distinctions accepted by almost all anthropologists today. Darwin's distinctions, like those of almost all of his nineteenth-century contemporaries, were decidedly hereditary and might even be called "racist."

5J - Struggle For Existence

According to Darwin, the evolutionary process by which differentially fit organisms compete for limited environmental resources. This struggle led to what Darwin famously called "survival of the fittest." The elements of struggle, survival, and inevitably, death set Darwin's theory of evolution apart from the theory of his predecessor Jean Lamark.

5I - Social Instincts

According to Darwin, the evolved capability of people and animals to feel love and sympathy for their own kind. These instincts were largely hereditary, so any theory of evolution needed to take them into account. Evolutionary considerations of social instincts, as well as of intellect and moral qualities, can lead to debates about "nature versus nurture."

5C - Intellect

According to Darwin, the evolved mental powers of people, attributed significantly to language. Darwin argued that the differences between people and their primate ancestors are largely differences of degree rather than kind. Besides intellect, these differences include moral qualities, which involve the ability to make value judgements about behaviour.

5D - Moral Qualities

According to Darwin, the evolved qualities of people and animals that allow them to reflect on past actions and to approve of disapprove of those actions. Darwin and his contemporaries considered behaviour to be significantly hereditary and to have evolved alongside physical attributes. Therefore, importantly, any account of human evolution needed to take behaviour into account.

7I - Religion

According to Durkheim, a collective representation of beliefs about human existence that society considers sacred and reinforces by ritual, no religion being false. Durkheim was not a theologian but a social theorist, so his main purpose was to understand the social function of religion rather than its absolute truth or existential meaning. For him, the paramount function of religion is to maintain social solidarity by inculcating a sacred sense that individuals are part of something bigger than themselves.

7F - Primitive Religions

According to Durkheim, religions found in simply organized societies that can be explained without reference to other religions. Durkheim believed that "primitive" and "civilized" religions such as Christianity share much in common. For him, all religions invoke sacred beliefs and practices to promote social solidarity.

7B - Collective Representations

According to Durkheim, representations of reality that reinforce social solidarity. Durkheim believed that collective representations that are deemed sacred, notably religions, are especially powerful enforcers of social solidarity. For him, collective representations reside in the "group mind."

6C - Civilization

According to Edward Burnett Tylor, a synonym for culture; according to Lewis Henry Morgan, the period of human history following savagery and barbarism; according to Freud, a synonym for culture opposed to human nature and based significantly on sublimated libidinous desires. The current anthropological understanding of culture comes closest to Morgan's understanding, although current anthropologists do not employ the terms savagery and barbarism, while Tylor's understanding is potentially misleading, because it associates culture with only "high" culture. Freud believed that civilization is in conflict with human nature because natural, libidinous desires have to be held in check for the social good, a position that contrasts with the position of anthropologists, who, in one way or another, approach civilization, or culture, as a compatible expression of human nature.

3C - Civilization

According to Edward Burnett Tylor, a synonym for culture; according to Morgan, the period of human history following savagery and barbarism; according to Sigmund Freud, a synonym for culture opposed to human nature and based significantly on sublimated libidinous desires. The current anthropological understanding of culture comes closest to Morgan's understanding, although current anthropologists do not employ the terms savagery and barbarism, while Tylor's understanding is potentially misleading, because it associates culture with only "high" culture. Freud believed that civilization is in conflict with human nature because natural, libidinous desires have to be held in check for the social good, a position that contrasts with the position of anthropologists, who, in one way or another, approach civilization, or culture, as a compatible expression of human nature.

6I - Order

According to Freud, an ideal of civilization based on sublimation of natural human instincts to the contrary. For Freud, civilization lurks above an animalistic human nature that is physically and psychologically disorderly. Civilized standards of order help counteract those tendencies for both individual and social well-being.

6D - Cleanliness

According to Freud, an ideal of civilization based on sublimation of natural human instincts to the contrary. For Freud, civilization lurks above an animalistic human nature that is physically and psychologically messy. Civilized standards of cleanliness help counteract those tendencies for both individual and social well-being.

6H - Neuroses

According to Freud, disturbed psychological states resulting from maladjustment to the demands of civilization. Freud believed that all people are at risk of developing neuroses, or more serious psychoses, if they fail to realize that civilization will not allow them to behave libidinously and therefore be truly happy. This dark vision applied especially to human sexuality.

6G - Libidinal

According to Freud, pertaining to the libido, the basis of natural human instincts. In Freud's theoretical schema, the human psyche comprises, besides the libido, the ego, which presents the self to the outside world, and the superego, or conscience, which is shaped by civilization and keeps the ego under control. Among the psychological mechanisms the superego uses to control the libido are regression and guilt.

6A - Anal Eroticism

According to Freud, the infantile interest in excretory functions that in adults is rechanneled into useful civilized traits. For Freud, anal eroticism is natural but, if retained into adulthood can become psychologically unhealthy. The "anal personality" of some adults is characterized by excessive preoccupation with order and self-control.

6J - Sublimination

According to Freud, the process of rechanneling libidinous instincts in ways useful to civilization. Freud believed that much of civilization is built on sublimation. The title of his book "Civilization and its Discontents" (1930) reflects his dark view that civilization is fundamentally at odds with human nature and therefore that people are, consciously or unconsciously, perpetually discontented.

6B - Beauty

According to Freud, the unnatural demand of civilization that people revere the impractical. Freud believed that people create civilization with belief systems and institutions that help them, unconsciously, manage their libidinous instincts. For Freud, many such belief systems and institutions, notably, religions, are based on psychological management through sublimation.

3A - Aryan Nations

According to Morgan, past and present speakers of Indo-European languages, customarily regarded as the high point of European civilization. The term confounds race, language, and geography in a way that anthropologists today find unacceptable. Aryanism was linked to German nationalism, leading to the twentieth century political philosophy of National Socialism or Nazism.

9G - Signified

According to Saussure, one of the two units constituting the linguistic sign, the signified being the concept represented by the sound or image, the signifier. In the English language, a tree is signified by the spoken word "tree." The spoken word is arbitrary and has no natural connection to a real tree.

9H - Signifier

According to Saussure, one of the two units constituting the linguistic sign, the signifier being the the sound or image that represents the concept, the signified. In the French language, the spoken word "arbre" signifies a tree. The spoken word is arbitrary and has no natural connection to a real tree.

9F - Sign

According to Saussure, the pair formed in the relation of a signifier to the signified, the essence of relations among meaningful linguistic units. Saussure's key assertion about signs is that they are not just sounds, or words, but sounds employed to convey meaning. This insight has proved foundational in modern linguistics.

4I - Society

According to Spencer, a real entity comprising a collection of individuals analogous to a real organism comprising a collection of body parts; according to Alfred Louis Kroeber, an aggregation of individuals, notably people, with culture. Both Spencer and Kroeber attempted to identify just what society "is", because its parameters are not immediately apparent. Traditionally, society became the domain of study of sociology, while culture became the domain of study of anthropology.

4B - Body Politic

According to Spencer, society organized like an organism; according to Margaret Lock and Nancy Scheper-Hughes, the political surveillance and regulation of bodies in matters such as reproduction, sexuality, and illness. These, and other, anthropological theorists use the term in full recognition of the conceptual interplay between biology and society. People today commonly use the term without always making that connection.

4D - Function

According to Spencer, the operation of a social structure, analogous to physiology as the operation of anatomy. British social anthropologists subsequently defined function as the contribution of a social part to the maintenance of a social whole. Bronislaw Malinowski believed that culture functions to satisfy human biological needs.

4J - Structure

According to Spencer, the organization of an entity, notably a society; according to Leach, a patterning of internally organized relationships, subject to multiple forms of expression and transformation. Spencer contrasted social structure with social function, or the operation of structure. Among structure-functionalists, such as Radcliffe-Brown, structure was imagined as the product of interlocking institutions, statuses, and roles. Later British social anthropologists such as Leach, sometimes called French structuralists, conceived of structure as more dynamic, mental and quasi-mathematical, as in musical composition.

2C - Culture

According to Tylor, "that complex whole, which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society"; according to Alfred Louis Kroeber, the learned and intergenerationally transmitted behaviour that sets humanity apart from other social animals; according to Leslie White, the extra-somatic means by which people adapt to their environments, capturing and transforming energy; and in Clifford Geertz's famous definition, culture is "the webs of significance" that humans have spun, and its analysis is "not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning." Key to all these definitions is the recognition that culture is expressed and communicated socially rather than genetically. Most anthropologists consider Tylor's definition to be the first and foremost of modern times.

2B - Civilization

According to Tylor, a synonym for culture; according to Lewis Henry Morgan, the period of human history following savagery and barbarism; according to Sigmund Freud, a synonym for culture opposed to human nature and based significantly on sublimated libidinous desires. The current anthropological understanding of culture comes closest to Morgan's understanding, although current anthropologists do not employ the terms savagery and barbarism, while Tylor's understanding is potentially misleading, because it associates culture with only "high" culture. Freud believed that civilization is in conflict with human nature because natural, libidinous desires have to be held in check for the social good, a position that contrasts with the position of anthropologists, who, in one way or another, approach civilization, or culture, as a compatible expression of human nature.

2J - Survivals

According to Tylor, present vestiges of, and clues to, past cultural practices. The persistence of "primitive" elements in "civilized" culture was an insight that many Victorian's of Tylor's era found difficult to accept. Gradually, anthropologists and non-anthropologists alike came to appreciate that survivals show how the world's cultures have much in common.

2I - Statistics

According to Tylor, the correlation of cultural events and attributes, demonstrating that the study of culture is scientific. Statistics is part of the mathematical toolkit of those contemporary anthropologists whose approach to research is quantitative rather than qualitative. Statistics can be used to test scientific hypotheses, but, by itself, it cannot prove relationships of cause and effect.

2H - Science of Culture

According to Tylor, the idea that culture evolves regularly and predictably in ways that condition human thoughts and actions. Early modern anthropologists such as Tylor characterized anthropology as scientific in order to give it credibility and authority. In the late twentieth century, anthropologists began to question, and in some cases denigrate, the proposition that anthropology is or should be scientific.

8J - War Lord

According to Weber, a chieftain who achieves charismatic authority through heroic acts of hunting and warfare, predecessor of the charismatic king. Today, heroic acts, especially in warfare, can catapult an individual into a position of political authority. Because that authority does not come from office, however, it cannot be routinely perpetuated.

8C - Charismatic Authority

According to Weber, authority exercised through charisma, meaning exercised through powerful, persuasive personality, contrasted with bureaucratic authority. Charismatic authority is not permanent, and it can be unstable, because it depends on the behaviour of a charismatic leader. If a charismatic leader loses the support of followers, the governance structure falters.

8A - Bureaucratic Structures

According to Weber, governing social structures that are permanent institutions of daily routine, contrasted with charismatic governance. Weber was an early theorist of bureaucracy as people commonly understand the term today, as well as an early theorist of charisma.

8D - Charismatic Kingship

According to Weber, kingship evolved from the charismatic heroism of war lords, contrasted with the divine right of kings. Today, when a national hero becomes a political leader, that leadership is similar to charismatic kingship. The leadership can be lost, however, and it cannot be inherited unless charisma is maintained.

8B - Charisma

According to Weber, social governance through powerful, persuasive personality, contrasted with bureaucratic governance. Charismatic authority does not derive from "office." Instead, it derives from the ability of certain individuals to become leaders, attracting followers and sometimes inspiring social change.

8G - Patriarchal Structures

According to Weber, social structures that generate authority based on normal economic routine, similar to bureaucratic structures and contrasted with charismatic governance. Weber recognized that authority rests more often with men than with women. Therefore, his theoretical schema for authority did not fully recognize matriarchal structures.

8E - Divine Right Of Kings

According to Weber, the authority of kings derived from bureacratic-like theology, contrasted with charismatic kingship. Kings who rule by divine right do not need to behave in such a way as to convince their subjects of their right to govern. Divine right by itself is a sufficient justification.

8H - Shamanistic Ecstasy

According to Weber, the extraordinary, trance-like behaviour of shamans that is a basis for their claim to charismatic authority. Weber likened religious prophets to shamans, because both kinds of charismatic leaders are able to create cult followings. Jesus Christ can be considered a charismatic prophet.

8I - Solomonic Arbitration

According to Weber, the process by which charismatic authorities settle disputes based on their perceived wisdom, like that of King Solomon of ancient Israel. This wisdom must be demonstrated. It cannot simply be invoked as if it "comes with the office."

5E - Natural Selection

Darwin's evolutionary mechanism whereby individuals with relatively advantageous attributes reproduce in greater numbers than individuals with relatively disadvantageous attributes. In "On the Origin of Species" (1859), Darwin explained natural selection as analogous to the artificial selection practised by breeders of plants and animals. Natural selection contrasts with Jean Lamarck's evolutionary mechanism of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

5H - Sexual Selection

Darwin's evolutionary mechanism whereby members of one sex are preferentially attracted to members of the opposite sex. In addition to natural selection, Darwin invoked sexual selection to account for key features of human evolution, including racial distinctions. Sexual selection became a major part of the late-twentieth-century theory of sociobiology.

9C - Phonemes

Differences in speech sounds that convey differences in linguistic meaning. Each spoken language is characterized by its set of phonemes, detected as minimally recognized contrasting pairs of sounds. In addition to being a core concept in linguistics, the concept of phonemes helped inspire the idea of binary oppositions in the French structural anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss and the idea of emics versus etics in the cultural materialism of Marvin Harris.

1I - Ruling Class

In Marxist theory, an oppressor class, notably the bourgeoisie. People today sometimes use the term to label any group with economic control over other groups. According to Marx and Engels, after the proletarian communist revolution, the ruling class would disappear, or the proletariat would become its own ruling class.

1E - Means Of Production

In Marxist theory, how people make a living in the material world. The early capitalist means of production were industrial, whereas the preceding means of production had been agrarian. Marx and Engels held that as the means of production evolve independently, the relations of production evolve dependently.

1C - Commodity

In Marxist theory, something bought and sold in capitalist exchange, including human labour. Competition among labourers in the "labour market" decreased wages and increased profit, exacerbating worker exploitation. Marx and Engels held that by becoming commodities, workers became alienated from themselves.

1B - Capital

In Marxist theory, the accumulated wealth of the bourgeoisie, derived mainly from profit. According to Marx and Engels, capitalist profit is "theft," because it robs workers of the fruits of their own labour. Pierre Bourdieu uses the word to mean social capital, the body of meanings, representations, and objects held to be prestigious or valuable to a social group.

1D - Feudal Society

In Marxist theory, the agrarian phase of history preceding the industrial phase, characterized by classes ranging from lords to serfs. The agrarian phase was preceded by the ancient phase, characterized by classes ranging from patricians to slaves. The industrial phase magnified all these differences and simplified them into the two antagonistic classes of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

1F - Modern Industry

In Marxist theory, the capitalist means of production. Marx and Engels wrote "The Communist Manifesto" (1848) during the Industrial Revolution, when industry meant mainly manufacturing in factories. Today, capitalism is probably better known for its system of finance than of manufacturing.

1H - Relations Of Production

In Marxist theory, the class-based social organization of how many people make a living in the material world. As materialists, Marx and Engels held that as the means of production change, the relations of production change to accommodate them. The capitalist relations of production comprise the antagonistic classes of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

1G - Proletariat

In Marxist theory, the lower, or working, class, oppressed by the bourgeoisie. The lowest layer of the working class, the "lumpenproletariat," was sometimes "reactionary" and aligned itself with the bourgeoisie. The final sentence of "The Communist Manifesto" (1848) is the famous call to proletarian revolution, "Workers of the world unite."

1A - Bourgeoisie

In Marxist theory, the middle, or capitalist, class, oppressor of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie owned the factories and other means of industrial production. As capitalism matured, the bourgeoisie splintered and, by impoverishing the proletariat, helped drive it to revolution.

1J - Victory Of The Proletariat

In Marxist theory, when workers appropriate the bourgeois means of production for themselves, ushering in socialism and ultimately communism. According to Marx and Engels, the process of dialectics, involving thesis/antithesis/synthesis, makes the proletarian revolution inevitable. Invoking dialectics led them to call their theory of communism "scientific" rather than utopian.

3E - Ethnical Periods

In Morgan's cultural evolutionary schema, past stages of cultural evolution. Morgan's main stages were savagery, barbarism, and civilization. Other nineteenth-century anthropologists, including archaeologists, also devised evolutionary stages, defining them differently.

3I - "Societas"

In Morgan's cultural evolutionary schema, the kind of society based on personal relations contrasted with "civitas." These personal relations were linked to kinship, or family, rather than to territory or stratified social class. "Societas" encompasses "simpler" societies that operate without the apparatus of formal governance or laws.

3D - "Civitas"

In Morgan's cultural evolutionary schema, the kind of society based on territory and property, contrasted by "societas." Territory and property imply stratified social classes with unequal access to subsistence. "Civitas" encompasses all civilized societies, including the capitalist societies analyzed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

3B - Barbarism

In Morgan's cultural evolutionary schema, the stage of culture from the invention of pottery to the invention of writing. According to Morgan, barbarism succeeded the stage of savagery and preceded the stage of civilization. Anthropologists today do not use the term, considering it derogatory.

3H - Savagery

In the cultural evolutionary schemas of Morgan and Edward Burnett Tylor, the earliest and most rudimentary stage of culture. Tylor and Morgan considered living "savages" to typify attributes of this stage. Anthropologists today do not use the term "savages," considering it derogatory.

2G - Savagery

In the cultural evolutionary schemas of Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan, the earliest and most rudimentary stage of culture. Tylor and Morgan considered living "savages" to typify attributes of this stage. Anthropologists today do not use the term "savages," considering it derogatory.

8F - Kadi-Justice

Justice derived from the rulings of Islamic judges. According to Weber, Kodi-Justice derives its authority mainly from charismatic rather than bureaucratic authority. In other words, it is mainly achieved rather than ascribed.

2D - Development of Culture

Or, evolution of culture, Tylor's idea that world culture has passed through successive broad stages. Many of Tylor's nineteenth-century contemporaries shared this idea, labelled classical cultural evolutionism. In the twentieth century, evolutionism fell out of anthropological theoretical favour, except with a few "neo-evolutionary" proponents, notably Leslie White.

9D - Phonetic

Pertaining to phonetics, the study of the sound systems of languages and how their sounds are produced. Phonetics is often contrasted with phonemics, the study of how languages convert sound into meaningful units, or phonemes. The contrast between phonetics and phonemics helped inspire the idea of emics versus etics in the cultural materialism of Marvin Harris.

9E - Semantic

Pertaining to semantics, the study of linguistic meaning. To study linguistic meaning, Saussure introduced his concept of the linguistic sign. In anthropological theory, the term is sometimes used more broadly to characterize symbolic, interpretive, and hermeneutic approaches to culture.

9J - Syntactical

Pertaining to syntax, the ways in which words form phrases and sentences. Syntax is commonly associated with grammar, and grammar is commonly associated with writing, but Saussure was concerned primarily with syntactical speech. Very many of the world's languages are only spoken, and these languages are the traditional focus of anthropological linguistics.

7G - Rationalists

Philosophers who favour a "priori" logic over experience as the source of human mental categories, synonymous with apriorists. Durkheim used the term more generally in characterizing people for whom reason rater than experience, or practice, is the key ingredient of religion. According to Durkheim, the multiplicity of approaches to religion in complex societies masks the similarities between complex and "primitive" religions.

7A - Apriorists

Philosophers who favour a "priori" logic over experience as the source of human mental categories, synonymous with rationalists. Durkheim held that all religions have both rational and experiential dimensions and without them cannot reinforce social solidarity fully and effectively. This combination of reason, or intuition, and experience is implicated by the modern term "emotional intelligence."

7J - "Sui Genesis"

Something onto itself, definable and describable only in its own terms. Early social theorists, both sociologists and anthropologists, went to considerable effort to explain that society and culture are entities "sui generis." They did so to carve out a disciplinary identity for sociology and anthropology and to make the point that society and culture cannot, and should not, be reduced to psychology or biology.

4H - Social Organism

Spencer's term for society conceptualized as analogous to an organism. Customarily, anthropologists have used biological vocabulary to describe, or "construct," society. Theoretical medical anthropologists have further explored the relationship between the body and society.

2E - Ethnography

The anthropological study of other cultures, usually involving fieldwork. Ethnography is the trademark research method of anthropology. In the late twentieth century, its various approaches began to come under intense theoretical scrutiny.

2A - Animism

The belief that both animate and inanimate objects have souls, a concept explored by Tylor. Tylor considered animism to be the evolutionary basis of all religions. Anthropologists today recognize that it is an element of many religions and spiritual beliefs around the world.

9B - Onomatopoeia

The circumstance whereby a spoken word sounds like what it represents. For example, some people think that the English spoken word "murmur" sounds like a real murmur. Saussure held that onomatopoeia is a rare exception to the rule that a linguistic signifier, in this example the spoken word "murmur," has no natural relation to a linguistic sign, in this example, the murmur itself.

4G - Organic Analogy

The conceptualization of social structure and function analogous to the structure and function of organisms. Spencer famously promoted the analogy in an effort to define society as the domain of study of sociology. Before him, Auguste Comte defined sociology as analogous to physics.

2F - Free Will

The idea that people think and act of their own volition, unmotivated by culture. Cultural determinists such as Leslie White believed that free will does not exist, although almost all contemporary anthropologists have recast the idea as part of human agency. Tylor downplayed free will in order to demonstrate the scientific power of culture.

3J - Subsistence

The means by which a people feeds, clothes, and shelters itself. Subsistence is not always rudimentary; rather, it is a requirement of even the world's most affluent people. Anthropologists whose theoretical orientation is materialistic treat subsistence as the primary determinant of culture.

4F - Nominalism And Realism

The philosophical doctrine that general concepts are not real but exist only as names, or nominalism, contrasted with the philosophical doctrine that general concepts are real and not merely names, or realism. Nominalism and realism are linked to the ancient Greek philosophies of Aristotle and Plato, respectively. In the period after Spencer, the debate between nominalists and realists became peripheral to anthropological theory.

7E - Experience

The philosophical exercise of accumulated empirical observation, transcending reason, as the guide for human thought and action. Experience is sometimes contrasted with intuition, but, upon reflection, it is difficult to completely separate the two. This was Durkheim's key point when he explained why religion is such a powerful social force.

7H - Reason

The philosophical exercise of logic, transcending experience, as the guide for human thought and action. In the history of Western philosophy, reason versus experience has been one of the most enduring and important debates. As a social theorist of religion, Durkheim held that religions have both rational and experiential, or sensual, dimensions.

7D - Empiricism

The position that human mental categories derive from experience, not a "priori" mental logic. Durkheim believed that religion has both logical, or rational, and empirical, or experiential, dimensions. One dimension cannot, and should not, be entirely reduced to the other.

4E - The Inorganic And The Organic

The realms of nonliving things, the inorganic, and living things, the organic. The question for Spencer and other early social theorists was whether society is analogous to an inorganic or an organic entity. Spencer argued for the organic analogy.

3F - Human Degradation

The view that human history comprises a decline from a higher state, derived in part from the biblical book of Genesis. Degradation is the opposite of progress. Nineteenth-century classical cultural evolutionists opposed the idea of degradation, considering human history progressive.

3G - Progress

The view that human history is moving from a less to a more desired state of affairs. Nineteenth-century anthropologists believed in progress, in contrast with Christian theologians who believed that humanity has fallen from an original state of divine grace. Anthropologists today use the term cautiously, because it requires a value judgement about just what "desirable" means.

7C - Cosmology

Views on the nature and structure of the universe, which according to Durkheim are linked to religion. Durkheim held that all religions, both "primitive" and "civilized," have cosmological components. These components help religions create a sense of common social purpose.

4C - Evolution

With reference to Charles Darwin, the process by which organisms transform themselves over time by natural means, such as natural selection; with reference to Franz Boas, the process by which cultures transform themselves over time, contrasted with the process of diffusion. Spencer used the term more generally in arguing that social and biological forms transform themselves analogously. The core element of all proper understandings of evolution is transformation of forms.

5A - Evolution

With reference to Darwin, the process by which organisms transform themselves over time by natural means, such as natural selection; with reference to Franz Boas, the process by which cultures transform themselves over time, contrasted with the process of diffusion. Herbert Spencer used the term more generally in arguing that social and biological forms transform themselves analogously. The core element of all proper understandings of evolution is transformation of forms.