List of Tables
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1. Humankind: Current Societal Debates
- Universal Postulates Everywhere!
- Popular Universality in Visual Media: "The Family of Man"
- Normative Universalism
Chapter 2. A World of Cultures: Their Differences and Likenesses
- Finding Patterns in Diversity: George Peter Murdock and Donald Edward Brown
- Universals as Subject Matter: Concept, Terms and Metaphors
- Universals do matter: The Relevance of Universals in General and for Cultural Studies
- Universals in Cultural Anthropology Today: the forgotten Half in the Science of Humanity
Chapter 3. Cultures and Human Nature: Human Beings are biologically Cultural
- The Nexus of Intra-cultural Diversity and Universals
- Human Nature and the Proper Image of Who We Are
- Homo sapiens: Uniqueness versus Special Status
Chapter 4. Universals: Examples from Several Realms
- Qualifying Remarks
- Narration and Expressive Culture
- Sociality
- Worldview and Images of Humanity
- Rituals and Beliefs
- Cognition and Knowledge
- Languages and Speaking
- Behavior and Experience
- Gender, Sexuality and Social Reproduction
Chapter 5. Methods: Deduction, Case Studies and Comparison
- Finding Potential Candidates and Deducing from Theory
- Case Studies: Testing Postulated Universals
- Concepts beyond Cultural Bias?
- Inventories of Universals
- Evaluating Lists of Universals and Holistic Forms of Representation
- Cross-cultural Comparison
- Cross-species Comparison
Chapter 6. Taxonomy: The Forms, Levels and Depth of Universals
- Levels, Spheres and Time Frame
- Substance and Depth
- Degree of Universality
- Conditional Universals and other Specific Forms
- Relations between basic Anthropological Orientations
Chapter 7. Toward Explanation: Why do Universals exist?
- Ten Pitfalls in Research and in Anti-universalism
- Systematics of Explanatory Approaches
- Cultural Contact: Universals through Cultural Transfer and Diffusion
- Function, Convergence and Structural Implication: Emerging Universals through Real-Life Circumstances
- Evolution: Universals Based on Adaptation
- Complex Causes
Chapter 8. Critical Positions: Arguments against Universalism
- Reification, Hidden Syllogisms and Implicit Primitivity
- Relativist and Empirical Criticisms
- Fundamental Criticism: Charges of Eurocentrism and Hegemony
Chapter 9. Synthesis: Human Universals and the Human Sciences
Bibliography
Index
