The modern anthropology is part of the study of the social sciences, and analyzes the man as a rational being from philosophical theories and integrating other disciplines.
Its objective is to analyze all the aspects of the man to understand its evolution and above all the important advances and changes of thought that arose between century XVII and XIX.
Kant, Rousseau, Hegel, Comte and Marx were some of the philosophers who influenced this discipline.
They exalted human reason to the utmost and distanced themselves from religious beliefs with the fixed premise that knowledge, reason, freedom, and creation were man's ultimate goal.
Characteristics and object of study of modern anthropology
Anthropology, formerly charged only with the study of primitive men, begins to integrate philosophical theories and comparative methodologies into their research in order to analyze man from various positions.
This led to this branching science, as each area of study would need its specialization but also each philosophical area would interpret the action of man with his own visions.
The areas of study that would be integrated into anthropology creating new disciplines would be cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, biological anthropology and archeology.
Then arises the visions of structuralist anthropologies, the Marxists or the functionalists, and the first anthropological societies are created in Germany, England and France.
Philosophical currents of modern anthropology
Anthropology begins to be analyzed under rationalistic philosophical premises. This current settled in Europe between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and then led to idealism.
Man will begin to study himself as an autonomous being. It is not the person that matters but reason. Man should be approached from the development of his ideas.
They believed that rationality would solve all the problems of mankind, it should be approached and corresponded to be the main objective of any study.
In England, on the other hand, they did not profess the same ideas. They clung to the fact that what was important was experience and deeds, and so the empiricism that Hobbes, Locke and Hume, among others, emerged.
Another current that lived alongside between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was mechanicism driven by Newton. They studied the man as if it were a machine to be calculated.
In Germany happens in the thirteenth and nineteenth century idealism. In this current rationalism would end, since the search for idealism would try to harmonize with reason to achieve theorizing about the unknowns and human contradictions that realism had failed to answer.
References
1- American Anthropological Association. (s.f.). Anthropology: Education for the 21st Century. American Anthropological Association. Retrieved from americananthro.org.
2- Discover Anthropology. (s.f.). What is Anthropology? Discover Anthropology. Retrieved from discoveranthropologu.org.uk.
3- Telles, A. (2007). Anthropological research. San Vicente (Alicante): Editorial Grupo Universitario, Recovered from: s3.amazonaws.com
4- Cienfuegos, C. (1993). Philosophical anthropology: of the encounter and discovery of man by himself. [Links]
5- Arribas, V., Boivin, M. and Rosato, A. (2004). Builders of Otherness: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology. EA. Recovered from antroporecursos.com