Our Common Denominator

Since the politicization of anthropology in the 1970s, most anthropologists have been reluctant to approach the topic of universalsthat is, phenomena that occur regularly in all known human societies. In this volume, Christoph Antweiler reasserts the importance of these cross-cultural commonalities for anthropological research and for life and co-existence beyond the academy. The question presented here is how anthropology can help us approach humanity in its entirety, understanding the world less as a globe, with an emphasis on differences, but as a planet, from a vantage point open to commonalities.

Christoph Antweiler is an anthropologist and Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, London and serves on the advisory board of the Humboldt Forum, Berlin.

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