1.
Anthropology
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Anthropology is the study of various aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology and cultural anthropology study the norms and values of societies, linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the development of humans. The abstract noun anthropology is first attested in reference to history and its present use first appeared in Renaissance Germany in the works of Magnus Hundt and Otto Casmann. Their New Latin anthropologia derived from the forms of the Greek words ánthrōpos and lógos. It began to be used in English, possibly via French anthropologie, various short-lived organizations of anthropologists had already been formed. The Société Ethnologique de Paris, the first to use Ethnology, was formed in 1839 and its members were primarily anti-slavery activists. When slavery was abolished in France in 1848 the Société was abandoned and these anthropologists of the times were liberal, anti-slavery, and pro-human-rights activists. Anthropology and many other current fields are the results of the comparative methods developed in the earlier 19th century. For them, the publication of Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species was the epiphany of everything they had begun to suspect, Darwin himself arrived at his conclusions through comparison of species he had seen in agronomy and in the wild. Darwin and Wallace unveiled evolution in the late 1850s, there was an immediate rush to bring it into the social sciences. When he read Darwin he became a convert to Transformisme. His definition now became the study of the group, considered as a whole, in its details. Broca, being what today would be called a neurosurgeon, had taken an interest in the pathology of speech and he wanted to localize the difference between man and the other animals, which appeared to reside in speech. He discovered the speech center of the brain, today called Brocas area after him. The title was translated as The Anthropology of Primitive Peoples. The last two volumes were published posthumously, Waitz defined anthropology as the science of the nature of man. By nature he meant matter animated by the Divine breath, i. e. he was an animist and he stresses that the data of comparison must be empirical, gathered by experimentation
2.
Psychology
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Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as well as thought. It is a discipline and a social science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist and can be classified as a social, behavioral, Psychologists explore behavior and mental processes, including perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, and personality. This extends to interaction between people, such as relationships, including psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas. Psychologists of diverse orientations also consider the unconscious mind, Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Psychology has been described as a hub science, with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the sciences, natural sciences, medicine, humanities. By many accounts psychology ultimately aims to benefit society, the majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Many do scientific research on a range of topics related to mental processes and behavior. The word psychology derives from Greek roots meaning study of the psyche, the Latin word psychologia was first used by the Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Marulić in his book, Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae in the late 15th century or early 16th century. In 1890, William James defined psychology as the science of mental life and this definition enjoyed widespread currency for decades. Also since James defined it, the more strongly connotes techniques of scientific experimentation. Folk psychology refers to the understanding of people, as contrasted with that of psychology professionals. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, India, historians note that Greek philosophers, including Thales, Plato, and Aristotle, addressed the workings of the mind. As early as the 4th century BC, Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that mental disorders had physical rather than supernatural causes, in China, psychological understanding grew from the philosophical works of Laozi and Confucius, and later from the doctrines of Buddhism. This body of knowledge involves insights drawn from introspection and observation and it frames the universe as a division of, and interaction between, physical reality and mental reality, with an emphasis on purifying the mind in order to increase virtue and power. Chinese scholarship focused on the advanced in the Qing Dynasty with the work of Western-educated Fang Yizhi, Liu Zhi. Distinctions in types of awareness appear in the ancient thought of India, a central idea of the Upanishads is the distinction between a persons transient mundane self and their eternal unchanging soul. Divergent Hindu doctrines, and Buddhism, have challenged this hierarchy of selves, yoga is a range of techniques used in pursuit of this goal
3.
Causality
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The four causes are elements of an influential principle in Aristotelian thought whereby explanations of change or movement are classified into four fundamental types of answer to the question why. Aristotle wrote that we do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its why, while there are cases where identifying a cause is difficult, or in which causes might merge, Aristotle was convinced that his four causes provided an analytical scheme of general applicability. The translation of Aristotles αἰτία that is nearest to current ordinary language is explanation, for a table, that might be wood, for a statue, that might be bronze or marble. Form, a change or movements formal cause, is a change or movement caused by the arrangement, Aristotle says for example that the ratio 2,1, and number in general, is the cause of the octave. Agent, a change or movements efficient or moving cause, consists of things apart from the thing being changed or moved, which interact so as to be an agency of the change or movement. For example, the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, or a working as one. End or purpose, a change or movements final cause, is that for the sake of which a thing is what it is, for a seed, it might be an adult plant. For a sailboat, it might be sailing, for a ball at the top of a ramp, it might be coming to rest at the bottom. The four causes are not mutually exclusive, for Aristotle, several answers to the question why have to be given to explain a phenomenon and especially the actual configuration of an object. In his philosophical writings, Aristotle used the Greek word αἴτιον, aition, the appropriation of this word by Aristotle and other philosophers reflects how the Greek experience of legal practice influenced the concern in Greek thought to determine what is responsible. The word developed other meanings, including its use in philosophy in an abstract sense. In the present context, Aristotle used the four causes to provide different answers to the question, the four answers to this question illuminate different aspects of how a thing comes into being or an event takes place. Aristotle considers the material cause of an object is equivalent to the nature of the raw material out of which the object is composed, whereas modern physics looks to simple bodies, Aristotles physics instead treated living things as exemplary. However, he felt that natural bodies such as earth, fire, air, and water also showed signs of having their own innate sources of motion, change. Fire, for example, carries things upwards, unless stopped from doing so, things like beds and cloaks, formed by human artifice, have no innate tendency to become beds or cloaks. In Aristotelian terminology, material is not the same as substance, matter has parallels with substance in so far as primary matter serves as the substratum for simple bodies which are not substance, sand and rock, rivers and seas, atmosphere and wind. Only individuals are said to be substance in the primary sense, secondary substance, in a different sense, also applies to man-made artifacts. Aristotle considers the formal cause as describing the pattern or form which when present makes matter into a type of thing
4.
Coincidence
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A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances which have no apparent causal connection with each other. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or it may lead to belief in fatalism, which is a doctrine that events will happen in the exact manner of a predetermined plan. From a statistical perspective, coincidences are inevitable and often less remarkable than they may appear intuitively, an example is the birthday problem, which shows that the probability of two persons having the same birthday already exceeds 50% in a group of only 23 persons. The first known usage of the word is from c.1605 with the exact correspondence in substance or nature from the French coincidence, from coincider. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung developed a theory which states that remarkable coincidences occur because of what he called synchronicity, one of Kammerers passions was collecting coincidences. He published a book titled Das Gesetz der Serie, which has not been translated into English, in this book he recounted 100 or so anecdotes of coincidences that had led him to formulate his theory of seriality. He postulated that all events are connected by waves of seriality, kammerer was known to make notes in public parks of how many people were passing by, how many of them carried umbrellas, etc. Albert Einstein called the idea of seriality interesting and by no means absurd, Carl Jung drew upon Kammerers work in his book Synchronicity. A coincidence lacks an apparent causal connection, a coincidence may be synchronicity, that being the experience of events which are causally unrelated, and yet their occurrence together has meaning for the person who observes them. To be counted as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance, some skeptics perceive synchronicity as merely an instance of apophenia. They say that probability and statistics theorems suffice to explain remarkable coincidences, charles Fort compiled hundreds of accounts of interesting coincidences and anomalous phenomena. Measuring the probability of a series of coincidences is the most common method of distinguishing a coincidence from causally connected events, to establish cause and effect is notoriously difficult, as is expressed by the commonly heard statement that correlation does not imply causation. In statistics, it is accepted that observational studies can give hints but can never establish cause. Mathematical coincidence Synchronicity Synchronism The Roots of Coincidence Alignments of random points Ley line Bible code David Marks, fluke, The Maths and Myths of Coincidences, London, Oneworld Publications
5.
Correlation and dependence
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In statistics, dependence or association is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Familiar examples of dependent phenomena include the correlation between the physical statures of parents and their offspring, and the correlation between the demand for a product and its price, correlations are useful because they can indicate a predictive relationship that can be exploited in practice. For example, an electrical utility may produce less power on a day based on the correlation between electricity demand and weather. In this example there is a relationship, because extreme weather causes people to use more electricity for heating or cooling. However, in general, the presence of a correlation is not sufficient to infer the presence of a causal relationship, formally, random variables are dependent if they do not satisfy a mathematical property of probabilistic independence. In informal parlance, correlation is synonymous with dependence, however, when used in a technical sense, correlation refers to any of several specific types of relationship between mean values. There are several correlation coefficients, often denoted ρ or r, the most common of these is the Pearson correlation coefficient, which is sensitive only to a linear relationship between two variables. Other correlation coefficients have been developed to be more robust than the Pearson correlation – that is, mutual information can also be applied to measure dependence between two variables. It is obtained by dividing the covariance of the two variables by the product of their standard deviations, karl Pearson developed the coefficient from a similar but slightly different idea by Francis Galton. The Pearson correlation is defined only if both of the deviations are finite and nonzero. It is a corollary of the Cauchy–Schwarz inequality that the correlation cannot exceed 1 in absolute value, the correlation coefficient is symmetric, corr = corr. As it approaches zero there is less of a relationship, the closer the coefficient is to either −1 or 1, the stronger the correlation between the variables. If the variables are independent, Pearsons correlation coefficient is 0, for example, suppose the random variable X is symmetrically distributed about zero, and Y = X2. Then Y is completely determined by X, so that X and Y are perfectly dependent, however, in the special case when X and Y are jointly normal, uncorrelatedness is equivalent to independence. If we have a series of n measurements of X and Y written as xi, N, then the sample correlation coefficient can be used to estimate the population Pearson correlation r between X and Y. If x and y are results of measurements that contain measurement error, for the case of a linear model with a single independent variable, the coefficient of determination is the square of r, Pearsons product-moment coefficient. If, as the one variable increases, the other decreases, to illustrate the nature of rank correlation, and its difference from linear correlation, consider the following four pairs of numbers. As we go from each pair to the pair x increases
6.
Religion
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Religions have sacred histories and narratives, which may be preserved in sacred scriptures, and symbols and holy places, that aim mostly to give a meaning to life. Religions may contain symbolic stories, which are said by followers to be true, that have the side purpose of explaining the origin of life. Traditionally, faith, in addition to reason, has considered a source of religious beliefs. There are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide, about 84% of the worlds population is affiliated with one of the five largest religions, namely Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or forms of folk religion. With the onset of the modernisation of and the revolution in the western world. The religiously unaffiliated demographic include those who do not identify with any religion, atheists. While the religiously unaffiliated have grown globally, many of the religiously unaffiliated still have various religious beliefs, about 16% of the worlds population is religiously unaffiliated. The study of religion encompasses a variety of academic disciplines, including theology, comparative religion. Theories of religion offer various explanations for the origins and workings of religion, Religion is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possible interpretation traced to Cicero, connects lego read, i. e. re with lego in the sense of choose, go over again or consider carefully. The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders, we hear of the religion of the Golden Fleece, of a knight of the religion of Avys. In the ancient and medieval world, the etymological Latin root religio was understood as a virtue of worship, never as doctrine, practice. In the Quran, the Arabic word din is often translated as religion in modern translations and it was in the 19th century that the terms Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism first emerged. Max Müller characterized many other cultures around the world, including Egypt, Persia, what is called ancient religion today, they would have only called law. Some languages have words that can be translated as religion, but they may use them in a different way. For example, the Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated as religion, throughout classical South Asia, the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial as well as practical traditions. Medieval Japan at first had a union between imperial law and universal or Buddha law, but these later became independent sources of power. There is no equivalent of religion in Hebrew, and Judaism does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities
7.
Folk religion
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The precise definition of folk religion varies among scholars. Sometimes also termed popular belief, it consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of a religion, the term folk religion is generally held to encompass two related but separate subjects. The first is the dimension of folk culture, or the folk-cultural dimensions of religion. Chinese folk religion, Folk Christianity, Folk Hinduism, and Folk Islam are examples of religion associated with major religions. Don Yoder argued that there were five separate ways of defining folk religion and this definition would view folk religion in Catholic Europe as the survivals of pre-Christian religion and the folk religion in Protestant Europe as the survivals of Medieval Catholicism. The fourth definition provided by Yoder stated that folk religion represented the folk interpretation and expression of religion and his fifth and final definition represented a practical working definition that combined elements from these various other definitions. Yoder described folk religion as existing in a society in relation to. Its relatively unorganized character differentiates it from organized religion and this term was first employed by a German Lutheran preacher, Paul Drews, in a 1901 article that he published which was titled Religiöse Volkskunde, eine Aufgabe der praktischen Theologie. Although developing within an environment, the term came to be adopted by German academics in the field of folkloristics. Over the coming decades, Georg Schreiber established an Institut für religiöse Volkskund in Munich while a department was established in Salzburg by Hanns Koren. Throughout the 20th century, many studies were made of folk religion in Europe, paying attention to such subjects as pilgrimage. In the Americas, the study of folk religion developed among cultural anthropologists studying the syncretistic cultures of the Caribbean and Latin America. The pioneer in this field was Redfield, whose 1930 book Tepoztlán, Yoder later noted that although the earliest known usage of the term folk religion in the English language was unknown, it probably developed as a translation of the German Volksreligion. One of the earliest prominent usages of the term was in the title of Joshua Trachtenbergs 1939 work Jewish Magic and Superstition, A Study in Folk Religion. Courses on the study of religion came to be taught at various universities in the United States, such as John Messengers at Indiana University. Although the subject of folk religion fell within the remit of scholars operating in both folkloristics and religious studies, by 1974 Yoder noted that U. S. He also lamented that many U. S. -based folklorists also neglected the subject of religion because it did not fit within the standard genre-based system for cataloguing folklore, the term folk religion came to be increasingly rejected in the 1990s and 2000s by scholars seeking more precise terminology. Yoder noted that one problem with the use of the folk religion was that it did not fit into the work of those scholars who used the term religion in reference solely to organized religion
8.
Superstition
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The word superstition is generally used to refer to the religion not practiced by the majority of a given society regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains superstitions. In the classical era, the existence of gods was actively debated both among philosophers and theologians, and opposition to superstition arose consequently, the poem De rerum natura, written by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius further developed the opposition to superstition. Cicero’s work De natura deorum also had a influence on the development of the modern concept of superstition as well as the word itself. Where Cicero distinguished superstitio and religio, Lucretius used only the term religio, Cicero, for whom superstitio meant “excessive fear of the gods” wrote that “superstitio, non religio, tollenda est ”, which means that only superstition, and not religion, should be abolished. The Roman Empire also made laws condemning those who excited excessive religious fear in others, during the Middle Ages, the idea of God’s influence on the world’s events went mostly undisputed. Trials by ordeal were quite frequent, even though Frederick II was the first king who explicitly outlawed trials by ordeal as they were considered “irrational”, the rediscovery of lost classical works and scientific advancement led to a steadily increasing disbelief in religions. This led to studies of biblical exegesis, pioneered by Spinoza, opposition to superstition was central to the Age of Enlightenment. The word superstition is first used in English in the 15th century, the earliest known use as an English noun occurs in Friar Daws Reply, where the foure general synnes are enumerated as Cediciouns, supersticions, þe glotouns, & þe proude. The French word, together with its Romance cognates continues Latin superstitio, while the formation of the Latin word is clear, from the verb super-stare, to stand over, stand upon, survive, its original intended sense is less clear. The earliest known use as a Latin noun occurs in Plautus, Ennius and later by Pliny, Cicero derived the term from superstitiosi, lit. Those who are left over, i. e. survivors, descendants, while Cicero distinguishes between religio and superstitio, Lucretius uses only the term religio. Throughout all of his work, he distinguished between ratio and religio. The use of the noun by Cicero and Horace thus predates the first attestation of the verb and it doesnt exclude that the verb might have been created and used after the name. The term superstitio, or superstitio vana vain superstition, was applied in the 1st century to those religious cults in the Roman Empire which were officially outlawed. This concerned the religion of the druids in particular, which was described as a superstitio vana by Tacitus, such fear of the gods was what the Romans meant by superstition. Diderots Encyclopédie defines superstition as any excess of religion in general, the Catechism is a defense against the accusation that Catholic doctrine is superstitious, Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, to attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. Matthew 23, 16–22 As discussed above, there is distinction between superstition and religion
9.
Belief
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Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. Another way of defining belief sees it as a representation of an attitude positively oriented towards the likelihood of something being true. In the context of Ancient Greek thought, two related concepts were identified with regards to the concept of belief, pistis and doxa, simplified, we may say that pistis refers to trust and confidence, while doxa refers to opinion and acceptance. The English word orthodoxy derives from doxa, Jonathan Leicester suggests that belief has the purpose of guiding action rather than indicating truth. In epistemology, philosophers use the belief to refer to personal attitudes associated with true or false ideas. However, belief does not require active introspection and circumspection, for example, we never ponder whether or not the sun will rise. We simply assume the sun will rise, since belief is an important aspect of mundane life, according to Eric Schwitzgebel in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a related question asks, how a physical organism can have beliefs. Epistemology is concerned with delineating the boundary between justified belief and opinion, and involved generally with a philosophical study of knowledge. The primary problem in epistemology is to exactly what is needed in order for us to have knowledge. Plato dismisses this possibility of a relation between belief and knowledge even when the one who opines grounds his belief on the rule. Among American epistemologists, Gettier and Goldman, have questioned the true belief definition. Mainstream psychology and related disciplines have traditionally treated belief as if it were the simplest form of mental representation, philosophers have tended to be more abstract in their analysis, and much of the work examining the viability of the belief concept stems from philosophical analysis. The concept of belief presumes a subject and an object of belief, Beliefs are sometimes divided into core beliefs and dispositional beliefs. For example, if asked do you believe tigers wear pink pajamas, a person might answer that they do not, despite the fact they may never have thought about this situation before. This has important implications for understanding the neuropsychology and neuroscience of belief, if the concept of belief is incoherent, then any attempt to find the underlying neural processes that support it will fail. Jerry Fodor is one of the defenders of this point of view. Most notably, philosopher Stephen Stich has argued for this understanding of belief. In these cases science hasnt provided us with a detailed account of these theories
10.
Ritual
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A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community, Rituals are characterized but not defined by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. Rituals are a feature of all human societies. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello may be termed rituals, the field of ritual studies has seen a number of conflicting definitions of the term. One given by Kyriakidis is that a ritual is an outsiders or etic category for a set activity that, to the outsider, seems irrational, non-contiguous, or illogical. The term can be used also by the insider or emic performer as an acknowledgement that this activity can be seen as such by the uninitiated onlooker, the English word ritual derives from the Latin ritualis, that which pertains to rite. In Roman juridical and religious usage, ritus was the way of doing something, or correct performance. The word ritual is first recorded in English in 1570, there are hardly any limits to the kind of actions that may be incorporated into a ritual. Catherine Bell argues that rituals can be characterized by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, Ritual utilizes a limited and rigidly organized set of expressions which anthropologists call a restricted code. Maurice Bloch argues that ritual obliges participants to use this formal oratorical style, which is limited in intonation, syntax, vocabulary, loudness, in adopting this style, ritual leaders speech becomes more style than content. Because this formal speech limits what can be said, it induces acceptance, compliance, Bloch argues that this form of ritual communication makes rebellion impossible and revolution the only feasible alternative. Ritual tends to support forms of social hierarchy and authority. Rituals appeal to tradition and are concerned to repeat historical precedents accurately. Traditionalism varies from formalism in that the ritual may not be yet still makes an appeal to historical. An example is the American Thanksgiving dinner, which may not be formal, thus, the appeal to history is important rather than accurate historical transmission. Catherine Bell states that ritual is also invariant, implying careful choreography and this is less an appeal to traditionalism than a striving for timeless repetition. The key to invariance is bodily discipline, as in prayer and meditation meant to mold dispositions. This bodily discipline is frequently performed in unison, by groups, Rituals tend to be governed by rules, a feature somewhat like formalism
11.
Prayer
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Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. Prayer can be a form of practice, may be either individual or communal. It may involve the use of words, song or complete silence, when language is used, prayer may take the form of a hymn, incantation, formal creedal statement, or a spontaneous utterance in the praying person. There are different forms of such as petitionary prayer, prayers of supplication, thanksgiving. Thus, people pray for many such as personal benefit, asking for divine grace, spiritual connection. Some anthropologists believe that the earliest intelligent modern humans practiced a form of prayer, scientific studies regarding the use of prayer have mostly concentrated on its effect on the healing of sick or injured people. Meta-studies of the studies in this field have been performed showing evidence only for no effect or a small effect. Some studies have indicated increased medical complications in groups receiving prayer over those without, the efficacy of petition in prayer for physical healing to a deity has been evaluated in numerous other studies, with contradictory results. There has been criticism of the way the studies were conducted. The act of prayer is attested in sources as early as 5000 years ago. Some anthropologists, such as Sir Edward Burnett Tylor and Sir James George Frazer, various spiritual traditions offer a wide variety of devotional acts. There are morning and evening prayers, graces said over meals, some Christians bow their heads and fold their hands. Some Native Americans regard dancing as a form of prayer, Jewish prayer may involve swaying back and forth and bowing. Muslims practice salat in their prayers, some pray according to standardized rituals and liturgies, while others prefer extemporaneous prayers. Friedrich Heiler is often cited in Christian circles for his systematic Typology of Prayer which lists six types of prayer, primitive, ritual, Greek cultural, philosophical, mystical, some forms of prayer require a prior ritualistic form of cleansing or purification such as in ghusl and wudhu. Prayer may be privately and individually, or it may be done corporately in the presence of fellow believers. Prayer can be incorporated into a daily life, in which one is in constant communication with a god. Some people pray throughout all that is happening during the day and this is actually regarded as a requirement in several Christian denominations, although enforcement is not possible nor desirable
12.
Sacrifice
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Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals to a higher purpose, in particular divine beings, as an act of propitiation or worship. While sacrifice often implies the ritual killing of an animal, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of food or artifacts, for offerings of liquids by pouring, the term libation is used. The Latin term sacrificium derived from Latin sacrificus, which combined the concepts sacra, the Latin word sacrificium came to apply to the Christian eucharist in particular, sometimes named a bloodless sacrifice to distinguish it from blood sacrifices. In individual non-Christian ethnic religions, terms translated as sacrifice include the Indic yajna, the Greek thusia, the Germanic blōtan, the term usually implies doing without something or giving something up. But the word also occurs in metaphorical use to describe doing good for others or taking a short-term loss in return for a greater power gain. Scholars such as René Girard have theorized that scapegoating may account for the origins of sacrifice, animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal as part of a religion. It is practiced by adherents of religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature. It also served a social or economic function in those cultures where the portions of the animal were distributed among those attending the sacrifice for consumption. Animal sacrifice has turned up in almost all cultures, from the Hebrews to the Greeks and Romans, Ancient Egyptians and it is against their religion for Egyptians to sacrifice animals, except for sheep, bulls, calves, male calves and geese. Animal sacrifice is practiced today by the followers of Santería and other lineages of Orisa as a means of curing the sick. However, in Santeria, such animal offerings constitute a small portion of what are termed ebos—ritual activities that include offerings, prayer. Christians from some villages in Greece also sacrifice animals to Orthodox saints in a known as kourbània. The practice, while publicly condemned, is often tolerated, according to Walter Burkert, a scholar of sacrifice, Greek sacrifices derived from hunting practices. Hunters, feeling guilty for having killed another living being so they could eat and survive, the primary evidence used to suggest this theory is the Dipolieia, which is an Athenian festival, in limited circulation, during which an ox was sacrificed. The protagonist of the ritual was an ox, which it had, at one point. According to his theory, the killer of the ox eased his conscience by suggesting that everybody should participate in the killing of the sacrificial victim. In the expansion of the Athenian state, numerous oxen were needed to feed the people at the banquets and were accompanied by state festivals, the hecatomb became the general designation for the great sacrifices offered by the state. These sacrificial processions of hundreds of oxen remove the original ties, Human sacrifice was practiced by many ancient cultures
13.
Taboo
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A taboo is a vehement prohibition of an action based on the belief that such behavior is either too sacred or too accursed for ordinary individuals to undertake. Such prohibitions are present in all societies. Breaking a taboo is usually considered objectionable by society in general, the term taboo comes from the Tongan tapu or Fijian tabu, related among others to the Maori tapu, Hawaiian kapu, Malagasy fady. Its English use dates to 1777 when the British explorer James Cook visited Tonga and he wrote, The term was translated to him as consecrated, inviolable, forbidden, unclean or cursed. In its current use on Tonga, the word tapu means sacred or holy, on the main island, the word is often appended to the end of Tonga as Tongatapu, here meaning Sacred South rather than Forbidden South. Sigmund Freud posited that incest and patricide were the only two universal taboos and formed the basis of civilization, however, although cannibalism, in-group murder, and incest are taboo in the majority of societies, marriages between brothers and sisters occurred in Roman Egypt. Modern Western societies, however, do not condone such relationships and these familial sexual activities are criminalised, even if all parties are consenting adults. Through an analysis of the language surrounding these laws, it can be seen how the policy makers, and society as a whole, find these acts to be immoral. Common taboos involve restrictions or ritual regulation of killing and hunting, sex and sexual relationships, reproduction, in Madagascar, a strong code of taboos, known as fady, constantly change and are formed from new experiences. Each region, village or tribe may have its own fady, taboos often extend to cover discussion of taboo topics such as profanity, resulting in euphemisms and replacement of taboo words. The word taboo gained popularity at times, with some looking for ways to apply it where other English words had previously been applied. For example, J. M. Albert Schweitzer wrote a chapter about taboos of the people of Gabon, as an example, it was considered a misfortune for twins to be born, and they would be subject to many rules not incumbent on other people. Communist and materialist theorists have argued that taboos can be used to reveal the histories of societies when other records are lacking, marvin Harris particularly endeavored to explain taboos as a consequence of ecologic and economic conditions. Some argue that contemporary multicultural societies have taboos against tribalisms and prejudices, incest itself has been pulled both ways, with some seeking to normalize consensual adult relationships regardless of the degree of kinship and others expanding the degrees of prohibited contact. Among other reasons, this taboo may come from concern that comments may be out of the appropriate context
14.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
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Post hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy that states Since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X. It is often shortened simply to post hoc fallacy, post hoc is a particularly tempting error because temporal sequence appears to suggest causality. The fallacy lies in a conclusion based solely on the order of events, a simple example, The rooster crows immediately before sunrise, therefore the rooster causes the sun to rise. The form of the post hoc fallacy is expressed as follows, A occurred, when B is undesirable, this pattern is often extended to the logical inverse, Avoiding A will prevent B. A tenant moves into an apartment and the furnace goes faulty. The manager blames the tenants arrival for the malfunction, the two events merely followed eachother, in the absence of causality. The Brazilian footballer Pelé is said to have blamed a dip in his performance on having given a fan a specific playing shirt. The loss of the shirt was given as the reason for his dip, in reality, it was later discovered the shirt returned was not, in fact, the one he had given up. Correlation does not imply causation Confirmation bias Superstition Jumping to conclusions Magical thinking Cargo cult Whig history Apophenia
15.
Victorian era
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The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victorias reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities, the era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe, culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and arts. The end of the saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of political reform, industrial reform. Two especially important figures in period of British history are the prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. Disraeli, favoured by the queen, was a gregarious Conservative and his rival Gladstone, a Liberal distrusted by the Queen, served more terms and oversaw much of the overall legislative development of the era. The population of England and Wales almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, Scotlands population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However, Irelands population decreased sharply, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15 million emigrants departed the UK permanently, in search of a life in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia. During the early part of the era, politics in the House of Commons involved battles between the two parties, the Whigs/Liberals and the Conservatives. These parties were led by such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18. Her long reign until 1901 was mainly a time of peace, Britain reached the zenith of its economic, political, diplomatic and cultural power. The era saw the expansion of the second British Empire, Historians have characterised the mid-Victorian era as Britains Golden Years. There was prosperity, as the income per person grew by half. There was peace abroad, and social peace at home, opposition to the new order melted away, says Porter. The Chartist movement peaked as a movement among the working class in 1848, its leaders moved to other pursuits, such as trade unions
16.
Doctrine of signatures
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The doctrine of signatures, dating from the time of Dioscorides and Galen, states that herbs resembling various parts of the body can be used by herbalists to treat ailments of those body parts. A theological justification, as stated by botanists such as William Coles, was that God would have wanted to show men what plants would be useful for, paracelsus developed the concept, writing that Nature marks each growth. According to its benefit, and it was followed by Giambattista della Porta in his Phytognomonica. The writings of Jakob Böhme spread the doctrine of signatures and he suggested that God marked objects with a sign, or signature, for their purpose. Plants bearing parts that resembled human body-parts, animals, or other objects were thought to have relevance to those parts. The signature could sometimes also be identified in the environments or specific sites in which plants grew, böhmes 1621 book The Signature of All Things gave its name to the doctrine. The botanist William Coles supposed that God had made Herbes for the use of men, coless The Art of Simpling and Adam in Eden, stated that walnuts were good for curing head ailments because in his opinion, they Have the perfect Signatures of the Head. A theological justification was made for this philosophy, It was reasoned that the Almighty must have set his sign upon the means of curing disease which he provided. The phrase signatures of all things appears in the beginning of episode 3 in James Joyces novel Ulysses. The character Stephen Dedalus walking along the beach, thinking to himself Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, the Canadian poet Anne Szumigalski, 1922-1999, entitled her third full-length collection Doctrine of Signatures. The signatures are described as post hoc attributions and mnemonics, of only in creating a system for remembering actions attributed to medical herbs. There is no evidence that plant shapes and colors help in the discovery of medical uses of plants. Augur Divination Magical thinking Naturalistic fallacy Pictogram Sympathetic magic Citations Bibliography Boehme, buchanan, Scott Milross The doctrine of signatures, a defense of theory in medicine. Cole, W. Adam in Eden or Natures Paradise, M Neve, V Nutton and R Porter. The Western Medical Tradition,800 BC –1800 AD, Porter, Roy The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present
17.
Representativeness heuristic
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The representativeness heuristic is used when making judgments about the probability of an event under uncertainty. It is one of a group of heuristics proposed by psychologists Amos Tversky, Heuristics are described as judgmental shortcuts that generally get us where we need to go – and quickly – but at the cost of occasionally sending us off course. Heuristics are useful because they use effort-reduction and simplification in decision-making, when people rely on representativeness to make judgments, they are likely to judge wrongly because the fact that something is more representative does not actually make it more likely. The representativeness heuristic is simply described as assessing similarity of objects and this heuristic is used because it is an easy computation. The problem is that people overestimate its ability to predict the likelihood of an event. Thus, it can result in neglect of relevant base rates, certain factors of the judgment or decision to be made make the use of the representativeness heuristic more likely. When judging the representativeness of a new stimulus/event, people pay attention to the degree of similarity between the stimulus/event and a standard/process. It is also important that those features be salient, several examples of similarity have been described in the representativeness heuristic literature. Research has focused on medical beliefs, people often believe that medical symptoms should resemble their causes or treatments. For example, people have believed that ulcers were caused by stress, due to the representativeness heuristic. In a similar line of thinking, in alternative medicine beliefs patients have been encouraged to eat organ meat that corresponds to their medical disorder. Use of the representativeness heuristic can be seen in even simpler beliefs, even physicians may be swayed by the representativeness heuristic when judging similarity, in diagnoses, for example. The researcher found that use the representativeness heuristic in making diagnoses by judging how similar patients are to the stereotypical or prototypical patient with that disorder. Irregularity and local representativeness affect judgments of randomness, things that do not appear to have any logical sequence are regarded as representative of randomness and thus more likely to occur. For example, THTHTH as a series of coin tosses would not be considered representative of randomly generated coin tosses as it is too well ordered. Local representativeness is an assumption wherein people rely on the law of small numbers, a small sample which appears randomly distributed would reinforce the belief, under the assumption of local representativeness, that the population is randomly distributed. Conversely, a sample with a skewed distribution would weaken this belief. Please write down your best guesses about the percentage of students who are now enrolled in the nine fields of specialization
18.
Edward Burnett Tylor
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Sir Edward Burnett Tylor was an English anthropologist, the founder of cultural anthropology. Tylors ideas typify 19th-century cultural evolutionism, in his works Primitive Culture and Anthropology, he defined the context of the scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell. He believed that there was a basis for the development of society and religion. Tylor maintained that all societies passed through three stages of development, from savagery, through barbarism to civilization. Tylor is considered by many to be a figure of the science of social anthropology. He believed that research into the history and prehistory of man, could be used as a basis for the reform of British society. Tylor reintroduced the term animism into common use and he regarded animism as the first phase of development of religions. He was born in 1832, in Camberwell, London, and was the son of Joseph Tylor and Harriet Skipper and his elder brother, Alfred Tylor, became a geologist. He was educated at Grove House School, Tottenham, but due to the deaths of Tylors parents during his adulthood he never gained a university degree. After his parents deaths, he prepared to help manage the family business, following advice to spend time in warmer climes, Tylor left England in 1855, travelling to Mexico. The experience proved to be an important and formative one, sparking his lifelong interest in studying unfamiliar cultures, during his travels, Tylor met Henry Christy, a fellow Quaker, ethnologist and archaeologist. Tylors association with Christy greatly stimulated his awakening interest in anthropology, Tylors first publication was a result of his 1856 trip to Mexico with Christy. His notes on the beliefs and practices of the people he encountered were the basis of his work Anahuac, Or Mexico, Tylor continued to study the customs and beliefs of tribal communities, both existing and prehistoric. He published his work, Researches into the Early History of Mankind. Following this came his most influential work, Primitive Culture, G. Frazer, who were to become Tylors disciples and contribute greatly to the scientific study of anthropology in later years. Tylor was appointed Keeper of the University Museum at Oxford in 1883, in 1896 he was appointed the first Professor of Anthropology at Oxford University. He was involved in the history of the Pitt Rivers Museum. 1871 Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society,1875 Honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of Oxford
19.
E. E. Evans-Pritchard
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Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, known as E. E. Evans-Pritchard, was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology. He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1946 to 1970. Evans-Pritchard was educated at Winchester College and studied history at Exeter College, Oxford, where he was influenced by R. R. Marett, there he came under the influence of Bronisław Malinowski and especially Charles Gabriel Seligman, the founding ethnographer of the Sudan. His first fieldwork began in 1926 with the Azande, a people of the upper Nile, Evans-Pritchard continued to lecture at the LSE and conduct research in Azande and Bongo land until 1930, when he began a new research project among the Nuer. This work coincided with his appointment to the University of Cairo in 1932, after his return to Oxford, he continued his research on Nuer. It was during this period that he first met Meyer Fortes, Evans-Pritchard began developing Radcliffe-Browns program of structural-functionalism. As a result, his trilogy of works on the Nuer, evans-Pritchards empirical work in this vein became well-known through philosophy of science and rationality debates of the 1960s and 1970s involving Thomas Kuhn and especially Paul Feyerabend. During the Second World War Evans-Pritchard served in Ethiopia, Libya, Sudan, in Sudan he raised irregular troops among the Anuak to harass the Italians and engaged in guerrilla warfare. In 1942 he was posted to the British Military Administration of Cyrenaica in North Africa, in documenting local resistance to Italian conquest, he became one of a few English-language authors to write about the tariqa. After a brief stint in Cambridge, Evans-Pritchard became professor of anthropology at the University of Oxford. He remained at All Souls College for the rest of his career, one of his students was Talal Asad, who now teaches at the City University of New York. Evans-Pritchards later work was more theoretical, drawing upon his experiences as anthropologist to philosophize on the nature of anthropology, in 1950 he famously disavowed the commonly held view that anthropology was a natural science, arguing instead that it should be grouped amongst the humanities, especially history. In 1965, he published the influential work Theories of Primitive Religion. Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard was born in Crowborough, East Sussex, England and he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1944. Known to his friends and family as EP, Evans-Pritchard had five children with his wife Ioma and his youngest son, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, is an investigative reporter for the London Daily Telegraph and author of The Secret Life of Bill Clinton. His younger daughter, Deirdre Evans-Pritchard, PhD, is an expert on folklore and she is a recipient of the Fulbright Fellowship. His eldest daughter, Shineen Evans-Pritchard, is a businesswoman and he also had two other children, twins, Nicky Evans-Pritchard, who works in computers, and John Evans-Pritchard, an economics teacher and author of several books. Evans-Pritchard died in Oxford on 11 September 1973, in 1972, a Festschrift was prepared for him, entitled Essays in Sudan ethnography, presented to Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard
20.
Zande people
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The Azande are an ethnic group of North Central Africa. They live primarily in the part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in south-central and southwestern part of South Sudan. The Congolese Azande live in Orientale Province, specifically along the Uele River, Isiro, Dungu, Kisangani, the Central African Azande live in the districts of Rafaï, Bangasu and Obo. The Azande of South Sudan live in Central and Western Equatoria States, Yei, Maridi, Yambio, in the early 19th century, the Bandia people ruled over the Vungara and the two groups became the Azande people. They lived in the savannas of what is now the part of Central African Republic. After the death of a king, the sons would fight for succession. The losing son would often establish kingdoms in neighbouring regions, making the Azande kingdom spread eastward and northward, sudanese raids halted some of northward expansion later in the 19th century. The Azande became divided by Belgium, France, and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the word Azande means the people who possess much land, and refers to their history as conquering warriors. Variant spellings include Adio, Zande, Zandeh, A-Zandeh and Sandeh, the name Niam-Niam was frequently used by foreigners to refer to the Azande in the 18th and early 19th century. This name is probably of Dinka origin, and means great eaters in that language and this name for the Azande was in use by other tribes in South Sudan, and later adopted by westerners. Today the name Niam-Niam is considered pejorative, the Azande speak Zande, which they call Pa-Zande, which has an estimated 1.1 million speakers. Zande Language is also used to refer to related languages in addition to Azande proper, including Adio, Barambu, Apambia, Geme, Kpatiri and Nzakara. The Azande population is spread over three Central African countries, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. Azande territory extends from the fringes of the South-central and Southwest Upper basin of South Sudan to the rain forests in Congo. After World War II, the British government tried to encourage cotton cultivation in southern Sudan in a known as the Zande Scheme. The program largely failed, partly because of the Azandes relative isolation to trading ports, because of this isolation, many Azande have moved to towns closer to major roads. The Azande are mainly small-scale farmers, crops include maize, rice, groundnuts, sesame, cassava and sweet potatoes. Fruits grown in the area include mangos, oranges, bananas, pineapples, zandeland is also full of palm oil and sesame
21.
James George Frazer
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Sir James George Frazer OM FRS FRSE FBA was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. He is often considered one of the fathers of modern anthropology. His most famous work, The Golden Bough, documents and details the similarities among magical, Frazer posited that human belief progressed through three stages, primitive magic, replaced by religion, in turn replaced by science. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of Daniel F. Frazer, a chemist, Frazer attended school at Springfield Academy and Larchfield Academy in Helensburgh. He studied at the University of Glasgow and Trinity College, Cambridge, from Trinity, he went on to study law at the Middle Temple, but never practised. Four times elected to Trinitys Title Alpha Fellowship, he was associated with the college for most of his life, except for a year, 1907–1908, spent at the University of Liverpool. He was knighted in 1914, and a lectureship in social anthropology at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow. He was, if not blind, then severely visually impaired from 1930 on and he and his wife, Lily, died in Cambridge within a few hours of each other. They are buried at the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge and his sister Isabella Katherine Frazer married the mathematician John Steggall FRSE. The study of myth and religion became his areas of expertise, except for visits to Italy and Greece, Frazer was not widely travelled. His prime sources of data were ancient histories and questionnaires mailed to missionaries, Frazers interest in social anthropology was aroused by reading E. B. Tylors Primitive Culture and encouraged by his friend, the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith, Frazer was the first scholar to describe in detail the relations between myths and rituals. His theories of totemism were superseded by the work of the French anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss and his vision of the annual sacrifice of the Year-King has not been borne out by field studies. Yet The Golden Bough, his study of ancient cults, rites, the first edition, in two volumes, was published in 1890. The third edition was finished in 1915 and ran to twelve volumes and he published a single-volume abridged version, largely compiled by his wife Lady Frazer, in 1922, with some controversial material on Christianity excluded from the text. The works influence extended well beyond the bounds of academia. Sigmund Freud cited Totemism and Exogamy frequently in his own Totem and Taboo, Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages, the symbolic cycle of life, death and rebirth which Frazer divined behind myths of many peoples captivated a generation of artists and poets. Perhaps the most notable product of this fascination is T. S. Eliots poem The Waste Land
22.
Western world
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The Western world or the West is a term usually referring to different nations, depending on the context, most often including at least part of Europe. There are many accepted definitions about what they all have in common, the Western world is also known as the Occident. The concept of the Western part of the earth has its roots in Greco-Roman civilization in Europe, before the Cold War era, the traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian countries and culture. Its political usage was changed by the antagonism during the Cold War in the mid-to-late 20th Century. The term originally had a literal geographic meaning, Western culture was influenced by many older great civilizations of the ancient Near East, such as Phoenicia, Minoan Crete, Sumer, Babylonia, and also Ancient Egypt. It originated in the Mediterranean basin and its vicinity, Greece, over time, their associated empires grew first to the east and west to include the rest of Mediterranean and Black Sea coastal areas, conquering and absorbing. Later, they expanded to the north of the Mediterranean Sea to include Western, Central, numerous times, this expansion was accompanied by Christian missionaries, who attempted to proselytize Christianity. There is debate among some as to whether Latin America is in a category of its own, specifically, Western culture may imply, a Biblical Christian cultural influence in spiritual thinking, customs and either ethic or moral traditions, around the Post-Classical Era and after. European cultural influences concerning artistic, musical, folkloric, ethic and oral traditions, the concept of Western culture is generally linked to the classical definition of the Western world. In this definition, Western culture is the set of literary, scientific, political, artistic, much of this set of traditions and knowledge is collected in the Western canon. The term has come to apply to countries whose history is marked by European immigration or settlement, such as the Americas, and Oceania. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the Roman Empire, Roman Catholic Western and Central Europe, as such, maintained a distinct identity particularly as it began to redevelop during the Renaissance. Even following the Protestant Reformation, Protestant Europe continued to see itself as more tied to Roman Catholic Europe than other parts of the civilized world. Use of the term West as a cultural and geopolitical term developed over the course of the Age of Exploration as Europe spread its culture to other parts of the world. Additionally, closer contacts between the West and Asia and other parts of the world in recent times have continued to cloud the use, herodotus considered the Persian Wars of the early 5th century BC a conflict of Europa versus Asia. The terms West and East were not used by any Greek author to describe that conflict, the Great Schism and the Fourth Crusade confirmed this deviation. The Renaissance in the West emerged partly from currents within the Roman Empire, Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a city-state founded on the Italian Peninsula about the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. In its 12-century existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy, to a republic, nonetheless, despite its great legacy, a number of factors led to the eventual decline of the Roman Empire
23.
Deductive fallacy
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A deductive fallacy is defined as a deductive argument that is invalid. The argument itself could have true premises, but still have a false conclusion, thus, a deductive fallacy is a fallacy where deduction goes wrong, and is no longer a logical process. The presence of a fallacy in a deductive argument does not imply anything about the arguments premises or its conclusion. In the strictest sense, a fallacy is the incorrect application of a valid logical principle or an application of a nonexistent principle. And so is this, People in Kentucky support a border fence, People in New York do not support a border fence. Therefore, people in New York do not support people in Kentucky, indeed, there is no logical principle that states, For some x, P. Therefore for some x, P and Q, an easy way to show the above inference as invalid is by using Venn diagrams. In logical parlance, the inference is invalid, since under at least one interpretation of the predicates it is not validity preserving, People often have difficulty applying the rules of logic. For example, a person may say the following syllogism is valid, therefore that creature is a bird. That creature may well be a bird, but the conclusion does not follow from the premises, certain other animals also have beaks, for example, an octopus has a beak. Errors of this occur because people reverse a premise. In this case, All birds have beaks is converted to All beaked animals are birds, the reversed premise is plausible because few people are aware of any instances of beaked creature besides birds—but this premise is not the one that was given. In this way, the fallacy is formed by points that may individually appear logical
24.
Wish fulfillment
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Wish fulfillment is the satisfaction of a desire through an involuntary thought process. Wish fulfillment can occur in dreams or in daydreams, in the symptoms of neurosis and this satisfaction is often indirect and requires interpretation to recognize. Sigmund Freud coined the term in 1900 in a text titled The Interpretation of Dreams. According to Freud, wish fulfillment occurs when unconscious desires are repressed by the Ego and Superego and this repression often stems from guilt and taboos imposed by society. Dreams are attempts by the unconscious to resolve some repressed conflict
25.
Euphemism
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A euphemism /ˈjufəˌmɪzəm/ is a generally innocuous word or expression used in place of one that may be found offensive or suggest something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, Euphemisms are used to refer to taboo topics in a polite way, or to mask profanity. There are three antonyms of euphemism, dysphemism, cacophemism, and loaded language, Dysphemism can be either offensive or merely ironic, cacophemism is deliberately offensive. Loaded language evokes a response beyond the meaning of the words. Euphemism comes from the Greek word εὐφημία, meaning the use of words of good omen, etymologically, the eupheme is the opposite of the blaspheme evil-speaking. The term euphemism itself was used as a euphemism by the ancient Greeks, Euphemism use ranges from a polite concern for propriety, to attempting to escape responsibility for war crimes. For instance one reason for the scarcity of written evidence documenting the exterminations at Auschwitz is directives for the extermination process obscured in bureaucratic euphemisms. Columnist David Brooks called the euphemisms for torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, phonetic euphemism is used to replace profanities, giving them the intensity of a mere interjection. Shortening or clipping the term Mispronunciations, such as Frak, Frig What the fudge, What the truck, Oh my gosh, Frickin, Darn, Oh, shoot, Be-yotch, sometimes, the word word is added after it. Also, the letter can be phonetically respelled, for example, using a less harsh term with similar meaning. For instance, screwed up is a euphemism for fucked up, hook-up, we hooked up, there is some disagreement over whether certain terms are or are not euphemisms. For example, sometimes the phrase visually impaired is labeled as a politically correct euphemism for blind, Euphemisms may be formed in a number of ways. Periphrasis, or circumlocution, is one of the most common, to speak around a given word, over time, circumlocutions become recognized as established euphemisms for particular words or ideas. To alter the pronunciation or spelling of a word to form a euphemism is known as taboo deformation. In American English, words that are unacceptable on television such as fuck, may be represented by such as freak. Some examples of rhyming slang may serve the purpose, to call a person a berk sounds less offensive than to call a person a cunt, though berk is short for Berkeley Hunt. Bureaucracies frequently spawn euphemisms of a more deliberate nature, doublespeak expressions, for example, in the past the US military called contamination by radioactive isotopes sunshine units. Such was part of the superficially innocuous formulation Endlösung der Judenfrage, a euphemism may often devolve into a taboo word itself, through the linguistic process known as pejoration or semantic change described by W. V. O
26.
Symbol
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A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences, all communication is achieved through the use of symbols. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas or visual images and are used to other ideas. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for STOP, on a map, a blue line might represent a river. Alphabetic letters may be symbols for sounds, personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose may symbolize love and compassion, the variable x, in a mathematical equation, may symbolize the position of a particle in space. In cartography, a collection of symbols forms a legend for a map The word derives from the Greek symbolon meaning token or watchword. It is an amalgam of syn- together + bole a throwing, a casting, the sense evolution in Greek is from throwing things together to contrasting to comparing to token used in comparisons to determine if something is genuine. The meaning something which stands for something else was first recorded in 1590, later, expanding on what he means by this definition Campbell says, a symbol, like everything else, shows a double aspect. We must distinguish, therefore between the sense and the meaning of the symbol. The term meaning can only to the first two but these, today, are in the charge of science – which is the province as we have said, not of symbols. The ineffable, the unknowable, can be only sensed. Heinrich Zimmer gives an overview of the nature, and perennial relevance. Concepts and words are symbols, just as visions, rituals, through all of these a transcendent reality is mirrored. They are so many metaphors reflecting and implying something which, though thus variously expressed, is ineffable, though thus rendered multiform, Symbols hold the mind to truth but are not themselves the truth, hence it is delusory to borrow them. Each civilisation, every age, must bring forth its own, in the book Signs and Symbols, it is stated that A symbol. Is a visual image or sign representing an idea -- a deeper indicator of a universal truth, Symbols are a means of complex communication that often can have multiple levels of meaning. This separates symbols from signs, as signs have only one meaning, human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent aspects of their specific culture
27.
Analogy
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Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another, or a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process. The word analogy can also refer to the relation between the source and the target themselves, which is often, though not necessarily, a similarity, as in the biological notion of analogy. Analogy plays a significant role in solving, as well as decision making, perception, memory, creativity, emotion, explanation. It lies behind basic tasks such as the identification of places, objects and people, for example, in face perception and it has been argued that analogy is the core of cognition. Specific analogical language comprises exemplification, comparisons, metaphors, similes, allegories, and parables, phrases like and so on, and the like, as if, and the very word like also rely on an analogical understanding by the receiver of a message including them. Analogy is important not only in language and common sense but also in science, philosophy. In cognitive linguistics, the notion of conceptual metaphor may be equivalent to that of analogy, Analogy has been studied and discussed since classical antiquity by philosophers, scientists, and lawyers. The last few decades have shown a renewed interest in analogy, in ancient Greek the word αναλογια originally meant proportionality, in the mathematical sense, and it was indeed sometimes translated to Latin as proportio. From there analogy was understood as identity of relation between any two ordered pairs, whether of mathematical nature or not, kants Critique of Judgment held to this notion. Kant argued that there can be exactly the same relation between two different objects. The same notion of analogy was used in the US-based SAT tests, for example, Hand is to palm as foot is to ____. This relation is not apparent in some definitions of palm and sole, where the former is defined as the inner surface of the hand. Analogy and abstraction are different cognitive processes, and analogy is often an easier one and this analogy is not comparing all the properties between a hand and a foot, but rather comparing the relationship between a hand and its palm to a foot and its sole. While a hand and a foot have many dissimilarities, the focuses on their similarity in having an inner surface. A computer algorithm has achieved human-level performance on multiple-choice analogy questions from the SAT test, the algorithm measures the similarity of relations between pairs of words by statistical analysis of a large collection of text. It answers SAT questions by selecting the choice with the highest relational similarity, Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle actually used a wider notion of analogy. They saw analogy as a shared abstraction, analogous objects did not share necessarily a relation, but also an idea, a pattern, a regularity, an attribute, an effect or a philosophy. These authors also accepted that comparisons, metaphors and images could be used as arguments, analogies should also make those abstractions easier to understand and give confidence to the ones using them
28.
Sigmund Freud
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Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg and he qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna. Upon completing his habilitation in 1885, he was appointed a docent in neuropathology, Freud lived and worked in Vienna, having set up his clinical practice there in 1886. In 1938 Freud left Austria to escape the Nazis and he died in exile in the United Kingdom in 1939. In creating psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, Freuds redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the analysis of symptom formation. On this basis Freud elaborated his theory of the unconscious and went on to develop a model of psychic structure comprising id, in his later work Freud developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture. Though in overall decline as a diagnostic and clinical practice, psychoanalysis remains influential within psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, nonetheless, Freuds work has suffused contemporary Western thought and popular culture. In the words of W. H. Audens 1940 poetic tribute, by the time of Freuds death, Freud was born to Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the first of eight children. Both of his parents were from Galicia, in modern-day Ukraine and his father, Jakob Freud, a wool merchant, had two sons, Emanuel and Philipp, by his first marriage. Jakobs family were Hasidic Jews, and although Jakob himself had moved away from the tradition and he and Freuds mother, Amalia Nathansohn, who was 20 years younger and his third wife, were married by Rabbi Isaac Noah Mannheimer on 29 July 1855. They were struggling financially and living in a room, in a locksmiths house at Schlossergasse 117 when their son Sigmund was born. He was born with a caul, which his mother saw as an omen for the boys future. In 1859, the Freud family left Freiberg, Freuds half brothers emigrated to Manchester, England, parting him from the inseparable playmate of his early childhood, Emanuels son, John. Jakob Freud took his wife and two children firstly to Leipzig and then in 1860 to Vienna where four sisters and a brother were born, Rosa, Marie, Adolfine, Paula, in 1865, the nine-year-old Freud entered the Leopoldstädter Kommunal-Realgymnasium, a prominent high school. He proved an outstanding pupil and graduated from the Matura in 1873 with honors and he loved literature and was proficient in German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Freud entered the University of Vienna at age 17, in 1876, Freud spent four weeks at Clauss zoological research station in Trieste, dissecting hundreds of eels in an inconclusive search for their male reproductive organs. He graduated with an MD in 1881, in 1882, Freud began his medical career at the Vienna General Hospital
29.
Symbolism (arts)
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Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s, in the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The name symbolist itself was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism in art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism and Impressionism. In ancient Greece, the symbolon was a shard of pottery which was inscribed, Symbolism was a reaction in favour of spirituality, the imagination, and dreams. Some writers, such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, began as naturalists before becoming symbolists, for Huysmans, the Symbolist poets have a more complex relationship with Parnassianism, a French literary style that immediately preceded it. The Symbolists continued to admire Théophile Gautiers motto of art for arts sake, many Symbolist poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, published early works in Le Parnasse contemporain, the poetry anthologies that gave Parnassianism its name. One of Symbolisms most colourful promoters in Paris was art and literary critic Joséphin Péladan, a number of Symbolists were associated with the Salon. Symbolists believed that art should represent absolute truths that could only be described indirectly, thus, they wrote in a very metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. Jean Moréas published the Symbolist Manifesto in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, the Symbolist Manifesto names Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine as the three leading poets of the movement. In a nutshell, as Mallarmé writes in a letter to his friend Cazalis, to not the thing. Symbolist poems were attempts to evoke, rather than primarily to describe, – both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another. The earlier Romanticism of poetry used symbols, but these symbols were unique, the symbolists were more extreme, investing all things, even vowels and perfumes, with potential symbolic value. The physical universe, then, is a kind of language that invites a privileged spectator to decipher it, Symbolist symbols are not allegories, intended to represent, they are instead intended to evoke particular states of mind. The nominal subject of Mallarmés Le cygne is of a trapped in a frozen lake. Significantly, in French, cygne is a homophone of signe, un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre. They were also portrayed as at odds with society, having tragic lives and these traits were not hindrances but consequences of their literary gifts. Schopenhauers aesthetics represented shared concerns with the symbolist programme, they tended to consider Art as a contemplative refuge from the world of strife and will
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Metaphor
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A metaphor is a figure of speech that refers, for rhetorical effect, to one thing by mentioning another thing. It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas, antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy and simile are all types of metaphor. The Philosophy of Rhetoric by rhetorician I. A. Richards describes a metaphor as having two parts, the tenor and the vehicle, the tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the object whose attributes are borrowed, other writers employ the general terms ground and figure to denote the tenor and the vehicle. Cognitive linguistics uses the target and source, respectively. Metaphors are most frequently compared with similes, a simile is a specific type of metaphor that uses the words like or as in comparing two objects, whereas what is commonly referred to as a metaphor states that A is B or substitutes B for A. What is usually referred to as a metaphor asserts the two objects in the comparison are identical on the point of comparison, a simile merely asserts a similarity, for this reason a common-type metaphor is generally considered more forceful than a simile. The metaphor category also contains these types, Allegory, An extended metaphor wherein a story illustrates an important attribute of the subject. Antithesis, A rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences Catachresis, A mixed metaphor used by design and accident. Hyperbole, Excessive exaggeration to illustrate a point Metonymy, A figure of speech using the name of one thing in reference to a different thing of which the first is associated, example, in lands belonging to the crown the word crown is metonymy for ruler or monarch. Parable, An extended metaphor narrated as an anecdote illustrating and teaching such as in Aesops fables, pun, Similar to a metaphor, a pun alludes to another term. However, the difference is that a pun is a frivolous allusion between two different things whereas a metaphor is a purposeful allusion between two different things. Metaphor, like other types of analogy, can usefully be distinguished from metonymy as one of two modes of thought. Thus, a metaphor creates new links between otherwise distinct conceptual domains, whereas a metonymy relies on the links within them. A dead metaphor is one in which the sense of an image has become absent. Examples, to grasp a concept and to gather what youve understood use physical action as a metaphor for understanding, the audience does not need to visualize the action, dead metaphors normally go unnoticed. Some people distinguish between a dead metaphor and a cliché, others use dead metaphor to denote both. A mixed metaphor is one that leaps from one identification to a second identification inconsistent with the first, e. g. Checkmate
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Laying on of hands
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The laying on of hands is a ritual that is a part of religious practices found in various cultures throughout the world. The practice of laying on of hands is used in Navajo religious ceremonies, the laying on of hands was an action referred to on numerous occasions in the Tanakh to accompany the conferring of a blessing or authority. For example, Isaac blessed his son Jacob by laying on of hands, aaron and the High Priests who succeeded him symbolically transferred the sins of the Children of Israel to a sacrificial goat by the laying on of hands, Leviticus16,21. By the laying on of hands, Num 27, 15–23, the Bible adds that Joshua was thereby filled with the spirit of wisdom. Moses also ordained the 70 elders, the elders later ordained their successors in this way. Their successors in turn ordained others and this chain of hands-on semikhah continued through the time of the Second Temple, to an undetermined time. The exact date that the original semikhah succession ended is not certain, many medieval authorities believed that this occurred during the reign of Hillel II, circa AD360. However, it seems to have continued at least until AD425 when Theodosius II executed Gamaliel VI and suppressed the Patriarchate, in the New Testament the laying on of hands was associated with the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Initially the Apostles laid hands on new believers as well as believers, in the early church, the practice continued and is still used in a wide variety of church ceremonies, such as during confirmation. The New Testament also associates the laying on of hands with the conferral of authority or designation of a person to a position of responsibility, the use of the laying on of hands for the ordination of church officers has continued in many branches of Christianity. The laying on of hands, known as the touch, was performed by kings in England and France, and was believed to cure scrofula. The belief continued to be throughout the Middle Ages but began to die out with the Enlightenment. Queen Anne was the last British monarch to claim to possess this divine ability, the French monarchy maintained the practice up until the 19th century. The act was performed at large ceremonies, often at Easter or other holy days. The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, the Complete Idiots Guide to Shamanism. ScienceMuseum. org. uks Kings Evil and the Royal Touch
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Placebo
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A placebo is a substance or treatment with no active therapeutic effect. A placebo may be given to a person in order to deceive the recipient into thinking that it is an active treatment. This phenomenon, in which the recipient perceives an improvement in condition due to personal expectations, research about the effect is ongoing. Placebos are an important methodological tool in medical research, common placebos include inert tablets, vehicle infusions, sham surgery, and other procedures based on false information. Placebo effects are the subject of research aiming to understand underlying neurobiological mechanisms of action in pain relief, immunosuppression, Parkinsons disease. Brain imaging techniques done by Emeran Mayer, Johanna Jarco and Matt Lieberman showed that placebo can have real, in other cases, like asthma, the effect is purely subjective, when the patient reports improvement despite no objective change in the underlying condition. The placebo effect is a phenomenon, in fact, it is part of the response to any active medical intervention. The placebo effect points to the importance of perception and the role in physical health. The use of placebos as treatment in clinical medicine is ethically problematic as it introduces deception, the United Kingdom Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology has stated that. prescribing placebos. Usually relies on some degree of patient deception and prescribing pure placebos is bad medicine and their effect is unreliable and unpredictable and cannot form the sole basis of any treatment on the NHS. In 1955, Henry K. Beecher proposed that placebos could have important effects. The article received a flurry of criticism, but the later published a Cochrane review with similar conclusions. A placebo has been defined as a substance or procedure and that is objectively without specific activity for the condition being treated. Under this definition, a variety of things can be placebos. Likewise, the effects of stimulation from implanted electrodes in the brains of those with advanced Parkinsons disease are greater when they are aware they are receiving this stimulation, sometimes administering or prescribing a placebo merges into fake medicine. Common placebos include pills or saline injections, fake surgeries have also seen some use. An example is the Finish Meniscal Legion Study Group’s trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine, while examples of placebo treatments can be found, defining the placebo concept remains elusive. A placebo electronic cigarette contains 0 mg of nicotine, instead they introduced the term meaning response for the meaning that the brain associates with the placebo, which causes a physiological placebo effect
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