How Do Cultures Think? Introduction to Cognitive Anthropology 3402-00HDCT
Philosophers for centuries have tried to outline the basic structures of human thinking, but only with contributions from linguistics cultural anthropology and cultural psychology has it become clear that people in various cultures have very diverse ways of conceptualizing the world. This is true not only of specific ideas, but also the most fundamental categories in which our experience is framed, such as time, space, number, or causality. In our class, we will reconstruct those differences, proceeding from the most elementary aspects of human experience to more complex ones. We will also retrace how human thinking has been influenced by the development of communication media, especially writing and the Internet.
Type of course
Mode
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Participants are able to:
1) explain how cognitive structures in general are shaped by linguistic processes of cultural transmission;
2) discuss main cultural differences in categorizing temporal, spatial, quantitative and qualitative aspects of experience;
3) understand different cultural models of truth and causality;
4) comprehend diverse concepts of individual human beings – their bodies, souls, personhood and gender;
5) compare different visions of the social, with a focus on kinship and hierarchy;
6) explain how the developments of writing and the Internet have reshaped human cognition.
Assessment criteria
Oral exam assessing participants’ grasp of the material presented in class and in assigned readings. The list of questions for the exam will be provided in the beginning of the semester.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: