Our Common Denominator

Since the politicization of anthropology in the 1970s, most anthropologists have been reluctant to approach the topic of universals-that 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.

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