What does holistic mean in anthropology?

Question

What does holistic mean in anthropology?

Answer 1

In my Anthropology textbook, holism is defined as "the study of the whole of the human condition: past, present, and future; biology, society, language, and culture"

It also says, "Anthropology is a uniquely comparative and holistic science".

I know that guy below me gave me the thumbs-down, but I'm getting it off of my TEXTBOOK. I'm taking the course right now...so yeah...basically don't listen to him lol

Answer 2

From my little handout thingy:

"Holism: Understanding cultures as complex systems that cannot be fully understood without paying attention to their different components including economics, social organization, and ideaology."

Basically, you cannot fully understand a culture with out looking at all the features, the 'whole picture' if you will.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

It means Anthropology is not a true science. Science is hierarchically reductionist in its approach to questions of nature.

Answer 4

That is a very good question. Typically, anthropologist use this term to describe the field of anthropology as a whole; in that holism is defined as being encompassing or complete. Within anthropology, we have 4 main subfields, Cultural anth., Physical anth., Linguistics, and Archaeology; to use a holistic approach would mean that any research question would not solely rely on just evidence from one of the subfields above, but some combination of 2 or more of the subfields to provide a better understanding of the question in focus.