Which of the following types of traits are likely to move from particularity to generality?

"Allerhöchste Allgemeinheit" und "genaueste Bestimmtheit" sind Schopenhauers Bestimmungen musikalischer Bedeutungen. Das darin enthaltene Paradoxon begegnet uns jedoch auch in zahlreichen anderen Kontexten, in denen die expressiven Bedeutungen der Kunst und insbesondere der Musik untersucht werden. Die ständige Wiederkehr dieses Paradoxon legt nahe, dat seine Aufldsung von groper Relevanz fiir jede umfassende Theorie musikalicher Bedeutung ist. Seine Aufldsung ist nicht nur fuir das bessere Verstindnis der Natur musikalischer Bedeutungen wesentlich, sondern dariiber hinaus auch fiir die Frage nach dem Verhiltnis von musikalischen und sprachlichen Bedeutungen sowie in weiterer Folge fir das hiiufig diskutierte Problem, inwiefern Musik als Sprache interpretiert werden kann. Dieser Aufsatz unternimmt den Versuch, das Paradoxon aufzulbsen. Dazu werden einige Bestandteile der Terminologie Susanne Langers verwendet, die sie in ihrer weithin bekannten Theorie musikalischer Bedeutungen heraus-gearbeitet hat. Der vorgeschlagene Ldsungs-versuch basiert auf der Unterscheidung zweier Begriffe der Allgemeneinheit (>Allgemeinheit< vs. >Abstraktion<<) und zweier Begriffe der Bestimmtheit (>>Spezifik<< vs. >Konkretheit<), dergestalt, da zwei unabhingige Paare ent-gegengesetzter Begriffe entstehen: Konkretheit vs. Abstraktion und Spezifik vs. Allgemeinheit. Mit Hilfe dieser Begriffe kann gezeigt werden, daB Aussagen, die als Argumente fiir die Allgemeinheit musikalischer Bedeutungen vorgebracht werden, lediglich ihre Abstraktion beweisen. Aussagen, die als Nachweis der Bestimmtheit gelten, begriinden lediglich ihre Spezifik (nicht aber ihre Konkretheit). Folglich kdnnen die Bedeutungen der Musik als abstrakt und gleichzeitig spezifisch bezeichnet werden, was keinen Widerspruch beinhaltet, da diese Begriffe unabhingig sind und miteinander nicht im Gegensatz stehen. Zugleich konnen die musikalischen Bedeutungen den sprachlichen gegeniiber gestellt werden, die abstrakt und allgemein sind. Wenn aber die Begriffe der Abstraktion und Allgemeinheit so verstanden werden, dati ihre Graduierung moglich ist, so kann man sagen: Wiihrend sprachliche Bedeu-tungen allgemeiner (d.h. weniger spezifisch) sind, kinnen musikalische Bedeutungen hiufig als wesentlich abstrakter (d.h. weniger konkret) angesehen werden.

Abstract

This article tackles two issues: the nature of law's judgment and what, if anything, might be said in its favour. As to the first issue, the article reminds lawyers of the obvious, namely, that law's judgment is abstract, elucidating both what this entails and why it may be thought problematic. The main burden of the article is to consider what might be said in favour of law's abstract judgment. Only one family of arguments, part of a wider but still not all-encompassing class, are considered here: arguments from the rule of law ideal. Three different arguments from the rule of law are examined, the conclusion being that two of three cannot provide unproblematic and unambiguous support for law's abstract judgment.

Journal Information

The Oxford Journal of Legal Studies is published on behalf of the Faculty of Law in the University of Oxford. It is designed to encourage interest in all matters relating to law, with an emphasis on matters of theory and on broad issues arising from the relationship of law to other disciplines. No topic of legal interest is excluded from consideration. In addition to traditional questions of legal interest, the following are all within the purview of the journal: comparative and international law, the law of the European Community, legal history and philosophy, and interdisciplinary material in areas of relevance.

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2. Human Culture and Ties that Connect

Conceptualizing Culture: What Culture is and What Culture isn’t

A widely accepted and the more comprehensive definition of culture was provided by the British anthropologist Edward B. Tylor. He defined culture as “a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. 

Also, Malinowski has defined culture “as cumulative creation of man”. He regarded culture as the handiwork of man and the medium through which he achieves his ends.

According to Robert Bierstedt, culture is the complex whole that consists of everything we think and do and have as members of society.

Combining several of these definitions, we may define culture as the common way of life shared by a group of people. It includes all things beyond nature and biology. Culture therefore, is moral, intellectual and spiritual discipline for advancement, in accordance with the norms and values based on accumulated heritage. Culture is a system of learned behavior shared by and transmitted among the members of the group.It is a collective heritage learned by individuals and passed from one generation to another. The individual receives culture as part of social heritage and in turn, may reshape the culture and introduce changes which then become part of the heritage of succeeding generations.

2.2. Characteristic Features of Culture

1. Culture is learned: it is not transmitted genetically rather; it is acquired through the process of learning or interacting with one’s environment. More than any other species human relies for their survival on behavior patterns that are learned. Human have no instinct, which genetically programmed to direct to behave in a particular way. This process of acquiring culture after we born is called enculturation. Enculturation is specifically defined as the process by which an individual learns the rules and values of one’s culture.

2. Culture is shared: For a thing, idea, or behavior pattern to qualify as being “cultural” it must have a shared meaning by at least two people within a society. In order for a society to operate effectively, the guidelines must be shared by its members. Without shared culture members of a society would be unable to communicate and cooperates and confusion and disorder world result.  

3. Culture Is Symbolic: Symbolic thought is unique and crucial to humans and to cultural learning. A symbol is something verbal or nonverbal, within a particular language or culture that comes to stand for something else.There need be no obvious, natural, or necessary connection between the symbol and what it symbolizes.

A symbol’s meaning is not always obvious. However, many symbols are powerful and often trigger behaviors or emotional states. For example, the designs and colors of the flags of different countries represent symbolic associations with abstract ideas and concepts.

4. Culture is all-encompassing:it encompasses all aspects, which affect people in their everyday lives. Culture comprises countless material and non-material aspects of human lives. Thus, when we talk about a particular people’s culture, we are referring to all of its man- made objects, ideas, activities whether those of traditional, old time things of the past or those created lately. Culture is the sum total of human creation: intellectual, technical, artistic, physical, and moral; it is the complex pattern of living that directs human social life, and which each new generation must learn and to which they eventually add with the dynamics of the social world and the changing environmental conditions. 

5. Culture is integrated: Cultures are not haphazard collections of customs and beliefs. Instead, culture should be thought as of integrated wholes, the parts of which, to some degree, are interconnected with one another. When we view cultures as integrated systems, we can begin to see how particular culture traits fit into the whole system and, consequently, how they tend to make sense within that context. A culture is a system change in one aspect will likely generate changes in other aspects. A good way of describing this integrated nature of culture is by using the analogy between a culture and a living organism. The physical human body comprises a number of systems, all functioning to maintain the overall health of the organisms, including among others, such system as the respiratory system, the digestive system, the skeletal system, excretory system, the reproductive system, and lymphatic system. 

6. Culture can be adaptive and maladaptive: humans have both biological and cultural ways of coping with environmental stresses. Besides our biological means of adaptation, we also use “cultural adaptive kits,” which contain customary activities and tools that aid us. People adapt themselves to the environment using culture. The ability to adapt themselves to practically any ecological condition, unlike other animals, makes humans unique.

7. Culture is dynamic: there are no cultures that remain completely static year after year. Culture is changing constantly as new ideas and new techniques are added as time passes modifying or changing the old ways.

2.3. Aspects/Elements of Culture 

The most basic aspects of culture are material and nonmaterial culture. These are briefly explained as follows:

2.3.1 Material culture

Material culture consist of man-made objects such as tools, implements, furniture, automobiles, buildings, dams, roads, bridges, and in fact, the physical substance which has been changed and used by man. It is concerned with the external, mechanical and utilitarian objects. It includes technical and material equipment. It is referred to as civilization.

2.3.2 Non – Material culture

Non-material culture consists of the words the people use or the language they speak, the beliefs they hold, values and virtues they cherish, habits they follow, rituals and practices that they do and the ceremonies they observe. It also includes our customs and tastes, attitudes and outlook, in brief, our ways of acting, feeling and thinking. Some of the aspects of nonmaterial culture listed as follows:

Values: are the standards by which member of a society define what is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Every society develops both values and expectations regarding the right way to reflect them. Values are a central aspect of the nonmaterial culture of a society and are important because they influence the behavior of the members of a society.

Beliefs: are cultural conventions that concern true or false assumptions, specific descriptions of the nature of the universe and humanity’s place in it. Values are generalized notions of what is good and bad; beliefs are more specific and, in form at least, have more content.

“Education is good” is a fundamental value in American society, whereas “Grading is the best way to evaluate students” is a belief that reflects assumptions about the most appropriate way to determine educational achievement.  

Norms: are shared rules or guidelines that define how people “ought” to behave under certain circumstances. Norms are generally connected to the values, beliefs, and ideologies of a society. 

Norms vary in terms of their importance to a culture, these are:

a) Folkway: Norms guiding ordinary usages and conventions of everyday life are known as folkways. Folkways are norms that are not strictly enforced, such as not leaving your seat for an elderly people inside a bus/taxi. They may result in a person getting a bad look. 

b) Mores: Mores (pronounced MOR-ays) are much stronger norms than are folkways. Mores are norms that are believed to be essential to core values and we insist on conformity. A person who steals, rapes, and kills has violated some of society’s most important mores. 

People who violate mores are usually severely punished, although punishment for the violation of mores varies from society to society. It may take the form of ostracism, vicious gossip, public ridicule, exile, loss of one’s job, physical beating, imprisonment, commitment to a mental asylum, or even execution

2.4. Cultural Unity and Variations: Universality, Generality and Particularity of Culture

Certain biological, psychological, social, and cultural features are universal (found in every culture), others are merely generalities (common to several but not all human groups), and other traits are particularities (unique to certain cultural traditions). 

1) Universality: Universals are cultural traits that span across all cultures. For example, everywhere we go can find family, marriage, calendar, etc.

2) Generality:Generalities are cultural traits that occur in many societies but not all of them. Societies can share same beliefs and customs because of borrowing Domination (colonial rule) when customs and procedures are imposed on one culture can also cause generality Independent innovation of same cultural trait – Farming Examples: – Nuclear family Parents and children.

3) Particularity: Trait of a culture that is not widespread cultural borrowing.

2.5. Evaluating Cultural Differences: Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

A. Ethnocentrism: The common response in all societies to other cultures is to judge them in terms of the values and customs of their own familiar culture. Ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to see the behaviors, beliefs, values, and norms of one’s own group as the only right way of living and to judge others by those standards. 

Being fond of your own way of life and condescending or even hostile toward other cultures is normal for all people. Because of ethnocentrism, we often operate on the premise that our own society’s ways are the correct, normal, better ways, for acting, thinking, feeling and behaving. Our own group is the center or axis of everything, and we scale and rate all others with reference to it. Ethnocentrism is not characteristic only of complex modern societies. People in small, relatively isolated societies are also ethnocentric in their views about outsiders. It is a cultural universal. Alien cultural traits are often viewed as being not just different but inferior, less sensible, and even “unnatural”.

Ethnocentrism results in prejudices about people from other cultures and the rejection of their “alien ways.” Our ethnocentrism can prevent us from understanding and appreciating another culture. When there is contact with people from other cultures, ethnocentrism can prevent open communication and result in misunderstanding and mistrust. This would be highly counterproductive for businessmen trying to negotiate a trade deal, professionals who work in areas other than their own or even just neighbors trying to get along with each other.

B. Cultural relativism:it refers to evaluating or interpreting the values, beliefs, practices and motives one’s society only within its social or cultural setting instead of within the frame work of some other or outside culture.Cultural relativism suspends judgment and views about the behavior of people from the perspective of their own culture. Every society has its own culture, which is more or less unique. Every culture contains its own unique pattern of behavior which may seem alien to people from other cultural backgrounds. We cannot understand the practices and beliefs separately from the wider culture of which they are part. A culture has to be studied in terms of its own meanings and values. Cultural relativism describes a situation where there is an attitude of respect for cultural differences rather than condemning other people’s culture as uncivilized or backward.

Respect for cultural differences involves:

• Appreciating cultural diversity
• Accepting and respecting other culture
• Trying to understand every culture and its elements in terms of its own context and logic
• Accepting that each body of custom has inherent dignity and meaning as the way of life of one group which has worked out to its environment, to the biological needs of its members, and to the group relationships
• Knowing that a person’s own culture is only one among many; and
• Recognizing that what is immoral, ethical, acceptable, etc., in one culture may not be so in another culture.

C. Culture Shock: refers to the psychological maladjustment individuals experience when they came across the society different from their own culture, i.e. first contact. It is a feeling of confusion and anxiety caused by contacts with another culture. Culture shock is the disorientation and frustration of those who find themselves among people who do not share their basic values and beliefs. Usually, disagreements over styles of dress, eating habits and other every day matters can be adjusted to fairly  easily. Acute culture shock is most likely when expectations about personal felling and interactions are violated.

D. Xenocentrism: is the belief that the products, styles or ideas of one’s society are inferior to those that originate elsewhere. In a sense, it is a reverse ethnocentrism.

E. Subculture: is a segment of society that shares distinctive patterns of mores, folkways, and values that differs from the pattern of the larger society. In a sense, a subculture can be thought of as a culture existing within a larger, dominate culture. The existence of many subcultures is characteristic of complex societies such as America. Members of subcultures participate in the dominant cultures while at the same time engaging in unique and distinctive forms of behavior (like argot).

F. Counterculture: When a subculture obviously and deliberately opposes certain aspects of larger culture, it is known as a counterculture. Countercultures typically thrive among the young, who have the least investment in the existing culture (like terror act, crime, deviant behavior, prostitution).

2.6. Culture Change

Culture change can occur as a result of the following Mechanisms:   

Diffusion:is the process of borrowing culture traits, complexes or patterns from other societiesand incorporated into the culture of the recipient group. It could be:

1. Direct: through war, trade, migration, etc.
   1. Indirect – though radio, television, reading materials etc.

2. Acculturation: is the exchange of cultural features that results when groups have continuous firsthand contact. This is usually happens in situations of trade or colonialism. In situations of continuous contact, cultures have also exchanged and blended foods, recipes, music, dances, clothing, tools, and technologies.

3. Innovation:  the process of introducing an idea, or object that is new from the existing culture. It is an improvement of the existing culture by using new method, ideas or products. 

4. Invention: it is a process of discovery of new culture

5. Globalization: itencompasses a series of processes, including diffusion and acculturation, working to promote change in a world in which nations and people are increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent. Promoting such linkages is economic and political forces, as well as modem systems of transportation and communication. Due to globalization, long-distance communication is easier, faster, and cheaper than ever, and extends to remote areas. The mass media help propel a globally spreading culture of consumption. Within nations and across their borders, the media spread information about products, services, rights, institutions, lifestyles, and the perceived costs and benefits of globalization. Emigrants transmit information and resources transnationally, as they maintain their ties with home (phoning, faxing, e-mailing, making visits, and sending money).

2.7. Ties That Connect:Marriage, Family and Kinship

 2.7.1. Marriage:

The ritual of marriage marks a change in status for a man and a woman and the acceptance by society of the new family that is formed. The term marriage is not an easy terms to define. For years, anthropologists have attempted to define these terms in such a way to cover all known societies. Frequently, anthropologists have debated whether or not families and the institutions of marriage are universals. One interesting case is that the Nayar of Southern India, did not have marriage in the conventional sense of the term. Although teenage Nayar girls took a ritual husband in a public ceremony, the husband took no responsibility for the women after the ceremony, and frequently he never saw her again. Thus the Nayar do not have marriage according to our definition in that there is no economic, cooperation, regulation of sexual activity, cohabitation, or expectation of permanency. 

Rules of Marriage

Societies also have rules that state whom one can and cannot marry. Every society knows to anthropology has established for itself some type of rules regulating mating (sexual intercourse). The most common form of prohibition is mating with certain type of kin that are defined by the society as being inappropriate sexual partners. These prohibitions on mating with certain categories of relatives are known as incest taboos. The most universal form of incest taboo involves mating between members of the immediate (nuclear) family: mother-sons, father-daughters, and brother-sisters. However, due to political, religious, or economic reasons, incest taboo is universally not applicable. Thus, some society or culture allows marriage betweenmembers of the immediate family. For example, the royal families among the ancient Egyptians, Incas and Hawaiians were permitted to mate with and marry their siblings, although this practiced did not extended to the ordinary members of those societies

Marriage is, therefore, a permanent legal union between a man and a woman. It is an important institution without which the society could never be sustained. 

Mate Selection: Whom Should You Marry?

In a society one cannot marry anyone whom he or she likes. There are certain strict rules nd regulations.

a) Exogamy: This is the rule by which a man is not allowed to marry someone from his own social group. Such prohibited union is designated as incest. Incest is often considered as sin. Different

b) Endogamy: A rule of endogamy requires individuals to marry within their own group and forbids them to marry outside it. Religious groups such as the Amish, Mormons, Catholics, and Jews have rules of endogamy, though these are often violated when marriage take place outside the group. Castes in India and Nepal are also endogamous. “Indeed, most cultures are endogamous units, although they usually do not need a formal rule requiring people to marry someone from their own society”.

c) The Levirate and Sororate:The levirate is the custom whereby a widow is expected to marry the brother (or some close male relative) of her dead husband. Usually any children fathered by the woman’s new husband are considered to belong legally to the dead brother rather than to the actual genitor. Such a custom both serves as a form of social security for the widow and her children and preserved the rights of her husband’s family to her sexuality and future children. 

The sororate, which comes into play when a wife dies, is the practice of a widower’s marrying the sister (or some close female relative) of his deceased wife. In the event that the deceased spouse has no sibling, the family of the deceased is under a general obligation to supply some equivalent relative as a substitute. For example, in a society that practice sororate, a widower may be given as a substitute wife the daughter of his deceased wife’s brother. 

Number of spouses

• Monogamy: the marriage of one man to one woman at a time.
• Polygamy i.e. marriage of a man or woman with two or more mates. Polygamy can be of two types:  polygyny: the marriage of a man to two or more women at a time and polyandy: the marraige of a woman to two or more men at a time. Marriage of a man with two or more sisters at a time is called sororal polygyny. When the co-wives are not sisters, the marriage is termed as non-sororal polygyny.

2.7.2. Family

Family is the basis of human society. It is the most important primary group in society. The family, as an institution, is universal. It is the most permanent and most pervasive of all social institutions. The interpersonal relationships within the family make the family an endurable social unit.

Cultural anthropologists have identified two fundamentally different types of family structure-the nuclear family and the extended family.

1. The Nuclear Family: Consisting of husband and wife and their children, the nuclear family is a two-generation family formed around the conjugal or marital union. Even though the nuclear family to some degree is part of a larger family structure, it remains relatively autonomous and independent unity. That is, the everyday needs of economic support, childcare, and social interaction are met within the nuclear family itself rather than by a wider set of relatives. 

In those societies based on the nuclear family, it is customary for married couple to live apart from either set of parents (neolocal residence), nor is there any particular obligation or expectation for the married couple to care for their aging parents in their own homes.

Generally, parents are not actively involved in mate selection for their children, in no way legitimize the marriages of their children, in no way legitimize the marriages of their children, and have no control over whether or not their children remain married.

2. The Extended Family

In societies based on extended families, blood ties are more important than ties of marriage. Extended families consist of two or more families that are linked by blood ties. Most commonly, this takes the form of a married couple living with one or more of their married children in a single household or homestead and under the authority of a family head.

Functions Marriage and Family

1. Biological Function: The institution of marriage and family serves biological (sexual and reproductive) function. The institution of marriage regulates and socially validates long term, sexual relations between males and females. Thus, husband wife relationship come into existence and become a socially approved means to control sexual relation and a socially approved basis of the family. Sexual cohabitation between spouses automatically leads to the birth of off-springs.  The task of perpetuating the population of a society is an important function of a family. Society reproduces itself through family.

2. Economic Function: Marriage brings economic co-operation between men and women and ensure survival of individuals in a society. With the birth of off-springs the division of labor based on sex and generation come into play.  In small scale societies family is a self-contained economic unit of production, consumption and distribution. 

3. Social Function: Marriage is based on the desire to perpetuate one’s family line. In marriage one adds, not only a spouse but most of the spouse’s relatives to one’s own group of kin. This means the institution of marriage brings with it the creation and perpetuation of the family, the form of person to person relations and linking once kin group to another kin group.

4. Educational and Socialization Function: The burden of socialization (via processes of enculturation and education) of new born infants fall primarily upon the family. In addition, children learn an immense amount of knowledge, culture, values prescribed by society, before they assume their place as adult members of a society.

2.7.3. Kinship

Kinship is the method of reckoning relationship. In any society every adult individual belongs to two different nuclear families. The family in which he was born and reared is called ‘family of orientation’. The other family to which he establishes relation through marriage is called ‘family of procreation’. A kinship system is neither a social group nor does it correspond to organized aggregation of individuals. It is a structured system of relationships where individuals are bound together by complex interlocking and ramifying ties.

2.7.4. Descent: refers to the social recognition of the biological relationship that exists between the individuals. The rule of descent refers to a set of principles by which an individual traces his descent. An individual always possesses certain obligations towards his kinsmen and he also expects the same from his kinsmen. Succession and inheritance is related to this rule of descent. There are three important rules of decent are follows;

1. Patrilineal descent: When descent is traced solely through the male line, it is called patrilineal descent. A man’s sons and daughters all belong to the same descent group by birth, but it only the sons who continue the affiliation. Succession and inheritance pass through the male line.

2. Matrilineal descent: When the descent is traced solely through the female line,iis called matrilineal descent. At birth, children of both sexes belong to mother’s descent group, but later only females acquire the succession and inheritance. Therefore, daughters carry the tradition, generation after generation.

3. Cognatic Descent:In some society’s individuals are free to show their genealogical links either through men or women. Some people of such society are therefore connected with the kin-group of father and others with the kin group of mothers. There is no fixed rule to trace the succession and inheritance; any combination of lineal link is possible in such societies.

What is the difference between human ties among parents and offspring and those found among chimpanzees and gorillas quizlet?

Which of the following is an example of what is known as a subculture quizlet?

What is the term that anthropologists developed to describe the tendency to see one's own cultural customs as superior?

Which of the following is the term anthropologists use to describe the process by which a child learns culture multiple choice question?