What exactly do you study in anthropology?

Question

I've been interested in studying human nature and why we act the way we do. Is this anthropology, or is is linked to philosophy?

Answer 1

The cool thing about anthropology is that it is a bunch of different disciplines all wrapped up into one. It's a mix of science, sociology, psychology, and statistics, to name a few. Of course anthropology's main purpose is to understand human behavior and the human animal. Philosophy, on the other hand, is more theory based and not a scientific practice like anthropology. While it may offer explanations, it does not offer hard evidence or facts, which is the role of an anthropologist.

Answer 2

The above answer is right on the money. Basically, in the simplest terms I can put it, anthro is the study of human nature and human culture. I am an anthro minor (my school doesn't offer it as a major).

Answer 3

Anthro is AWESOME. There are 4 (or 5 to some) subfields, all of which are quite different. You have Cultural Anth, which is the study of people, mostly present, or in the form of an ethnography, which is pretty much a book on a culture, written as if it is happening now! Then you have Archaeology, which is also the study of humans and culture, but in the past. These people study dead cultures, cool! You get to recreate the past, dig stuff up, get dirty. You also trace the roots of civilization. Linguistics is another, where you study language, such as word intricacies and mouth movements. Sign language, animal communication, dead languages, current languages, all sorts of stuff. It is the most different from the other parts of Anthro. Fourth, you have physical anthro, which is the study of primates, human evolution, human development, where we came from, biology, forensics (yes, you get to see crushed skulls and cool stuff like that). FInally, some consider Applied anthro a 5th division, in which you take what you learned and apply it to a culture to better their situations. This can be in the form of Health and medicine, or Globalization, studying how the world is now interacting more and more due to technology.----To sum it up, you will learn how to think much differently about EVERYTHING. I can honestly say that anthropology has made me a better person.