Category:Philosophical Antecedents

The idea of anthropology (literally "the study of the human") goes back at least to Aristotle, and has many different philosophical variants along the way. In this course we will focus mainly on those philosophers who, between the 16th century and the enlightenment, worked to define a concept of human affairs that could be studied on its own terms, or that had some specific separation from the natural or spiritual realm. These people lay the groundwork for writers like Durkheim and Boas to create the modern definitions of "society" and "culture" respectively.

Thinkers in this vein include: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rene Descartes, Emannuel Kant, Georg Friedrich Hegel and Auguste Compte.