COGNITIVE ANTHROPOLOGY (Anthropology Paper I)
( Anthropology Optional Paper I) Syllabus Section: 6. Anthropological Theories Introduction: Cognitive Anthropology studies culture as an ideational system, as a system of knowledge which is embedded in words, stories and in the artifacts which is learned from and shared with other humans. It describes, analyzes and interprets the workings of the human mind. Cognitive anthropology is an idealist approach to studying the human conditions. This field focuses on the study of the relationship between human culture and human thought. In contrast to some earlier approaches, C/A does not regard culture as material phenomenon but rather cognitive organization It studies how people understand and organize material objects, events and experiences It is an approach that stresses upon how people make sense of reality according to their own indigenous cognitive categories, not those of the anthropologist The goal of CA is to arrive at a description and analysis of culture as a member of that ...