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Chargement... Human Universals (1991)par Donald E. Brown
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. Chapter 6 is Brown's description of what all human cultures have in common. The universals are sufficiently abstract that they are difficult to disagree with, though some of his explanations for the universals seem iffy. I wish he had spent some time on the implicational universals (given X, then generally Y) that are so common in linguistics. Chapters 1-5 are the arguments for taking chapter 6 seriously. Interesting stuff, even if one does not agree with him. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
This book covers physical and behavioural characteristics that can be considered universal among all cultures and people. The text is divided into three parts: the problems posed for anthropology by universals; six important studies that have forced anthropologists to rethink; and the distinctions between linguistic, cultural and social universals. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)306Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Culture and InstitutionsClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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Brown clearly how this cultural relativism/determinism was based on very inadequate field research, and biased assumption. Brown's own position will be clear by now: according to him, there indeed are universal characteristics that transcend local cultures, and these are simply the result of general human evolution in the Darwinian sense. Brown draws mainly on evolutionary psychology, which was just emerging when his book was published (1991). I must admit that in his treatment of what these universal values are in concrete terms, he remains rather vague and general: for example, that language is very important for all people and in all cultures, both in dealing with the environment, with others and with oneself. Well, I could have come up with that myself. Brown is a little more concrete when it comes to family and kinship: that a family is primarily a mother and children, and that this usually also involves a man and some form of marriage or institutional commitment. But then again: what use are statements like that? Maybe it’s merit just lies in proving cultural determinism wrong, nothing more than that. But perhaps I should see Brown's work as a starting point: it is already 30 years old, and maybe others have built on it to arrive at much more concrete delineations. I keep on searching. ( )