UNDERSTANDING OF THE

SELF

DIFFERENT ELEMENTS OF
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
ANTHROPOLOGICAL

UNDERSTANDING OF THE SELF

 ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology is the study of people throughout the world, their

evolutionary history, how they behave, adapt to different
environments, communicate and socialize with one another.
The study of anthropology is concerned both with the
biological features that make us human (such as physiology,
genetic makeup, nutritional history and evolution) and with
social aspects (such as language, culture, politics, family and
religion).
 A few common questions posed by anthropology are:
how are societies different and how are they the same? how has evolution shaped how we think? what
is culture? are there human universals?

• By taking the time to study peoples’ lives in detail, anthropologists explore what makes us uniquely
human. In doing so, anthropologists aim to increase our understanding of ourselves and of each other.
BRANCHES:
Franz Uri Boas was a German-born American
anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology
who has been called the "Father of American
Anthropology". He was one of the most influential social
scientists of the early twentieth century, noted for his
commitment to cultural relativism and as a staunch
opponent of racist ideologies. He is best known for his
curatorial work at the American Museum of National
History in New York and for his nearly four-decade
career teaching anthropology at Columbia University.

Born: July 9, 1858
Died: December 21, 1942
 FRANZ BOAS

• Boas is well known for his theory of cultural relativism, which

held that all cultures were essentially equal but simply had to
be understood in their own terms. Comparing two cultures
was tantamount to comparing apples and oranges; they were
fundamentally different and had to be approached as such.
This marked a decisive break with the evolutionary thinking
of the period, which attempted to organize cultures and
cultural artifacts by an imagined level of progress. For Boas,
no culture was more or less developed or advanced than any
other. They were simply different.
EUROPEAN FESTIVAL VS. PHILIPPINE
FESTIVAL
 FRANZ BOAS

• Along similar lines, Boas denounced the belief that

different racial or ethnic groups were more advanced than
others. He opposed scientific racism, a dominant school
of thought at that time. Scientific racism held that race
was a biological, rather than cultural, concept and that
racial differences could thus be attributed to underlying
biology. While such ideas have since been refuted, they
were very popular in the early twentieth century.
 REFLECTION:

• We are raised differently. We enjoy things based on the things that we value
and the things that are only present to us.
SOCIOLOGICAL

UNDERSTANDING OF THE SELF

 SOCIOLOGY

• Sociology is the study of human social relationships and institutions. Sociology’s

subject matter is diverse, ranging from crime to religion, from the family to the
state, from the divisions of race and social class to the shared beliefs of a common
culture, and from social stability to radical change in whole societies. Unifying the
study of these diverse subjects of study is sociology’s purpose of understanding
how human action and consciousness both shape and are shaped by surrounding
cultural and social structures.
David Émile Durkheim was a French
sociologist. Durkheim formally
established the academic discipline
of sociology and is commonly cited
as one of the principal architects of
modern social science, along with
both Karl Marx and Max Weber. 

Born: April 15, 1858

Died: November 15, 1917
 Durkheim believed that society exerted a powerful force on individuals.
People’s norms, beliefs, and values make up a collective consciousness, or a
shared way of understanding and behaving in the world.
 FORMATION OF COLLECTIVE
CONSCIOUSNESS

The collective consciousness was crucial in explaining the

existence of society: it produces society and holds it
together. At the same time, the collective consciousness is
produced by individuals through their actions and
interactions. 
SOME EXAMPLES
OF COLLECTIVE
CONSCIOUSNESS:
Society is a social product created by the actions of
individuals that then exerts a coercive social force
back on those individuals.
 SOCIAL DISINTEGRATION

Population growth creates competition and incentives

to trade and further the division of labor. But as people
engage in more economic activity with neighbors or
distant traders, they begin to loosen the traditional
bonds of family, religion, and moral solidarity that had
previously ensured social integration. Durkheim worried
that modernity might herald the disintegration
of society.
 BIOLOGICAL

UNDERSTANDING OF THE SELF

 BIOLOGY

• Biology is a natural science discipline that

studies living things. It is a very large and
broad field due to the wide variety of life found
on Earth, so individual biologists normally
focus on specific fields. These fields are either
categorized by the scale of life or by the types
of organisms studied.
 William Harvey is an
English physician who was the first to
recognize the full circulation of
the blood in the human body.

Born: April 1, 1578

Died: June 3, 1657
Harvey claimed he was led to his
discovery of the circulation by
consideration of the venous valves. It
was known that there were small
flaps inside the veins that allowed
free passage of blood in one direction
but strongly inhibited the flow of
blood in the opposite direction. It
was thought that these flaps
prevented pooling of the blood under
the influence of gravity, but Harvey
was able to show that all these flaps
are cardiocentrically oriented.
 Click icon to add picture

Proper circulation is key for

maintaining optimal health. It
ensures that blood and oxygen
continuously flow throughout the
body, allowing every organ to
function properly. It helps to heal
wounds faster, it keeps
your brain sharp, it keeps
your heart healthy, and it even
gives your complexion a natural
flush.
 REFLECTION

Blood circulation has been a very important aspect

in having a healthy lifestyle.
HUMAN SEXUALITY

UNDERSTANDING OF THE SELF

 SEXUALITY

Sexuality is about your sexual

feelings, thoughts, attractions and
behaviors towards other people.
You can find other people
physically, sexually or emotionally
attractive, and all those things are a
part of your sexuality. Sexuality is
diverse and personal, and it is an
important part of who you are.
 • Sexuality is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of
communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love. Therefore it is an integral part
of the development of the personality and of its educative process: "It is, in fact, from sex that the human
person receives the characteristics which, on the biological, psychological and spiritual levels, make that
person a man or a woman, and thereby largely condition his or her progress towards maturity and insertion
into society.
(CCE, Educational Guidance in Human Love: Outlines for Sex Education,
November 1, 1983, #4)
Alfred Charles Kinsey was an
American biologist, professor of
entomology and zoology, and
sexologist who, in 1947, founded the
Institute for Sex Research at Indiana
University, now known as the Kinsey
Institute for Research in Sex, Gender,
and Reproduction.

Born: June 23, 1894 

Died: August 25, 1956
 ALFRED KINSEY

• Kinsey is recognized as the first

person to explore sexuality from a
scientific perspective. He argued that
sexual ignorance was widespread and
that delaying sexual experience until
marriage was psychologically harmful.
He interviewed more than 17,000
face-to-face interviews with a
broad set of people—college
students, prostitutes, and even
prison inmates—to understand
their sexual experiences.
 DISCOVERIES

• The revelation that homosexual behaviors were

significantly more common than previously
thought. Homosexuality was particularly common
among men, and almost 1/3 of Kinsey's male
subjects reported a homosexual experience. 
• The discovery that infidelity in marriage was
widespread. 
• The realization that masturbation was widespread
and almost universal among men. 
• The discovery that intercourse prior to marriage was
common, despite cultural taboos forbidding it. 
 KINSEY SCALE

• Kinsey developed the Kinsey Scale to codify sexual orientation. His

scale is notable because it does not create a strict dichotomy
between heterosexuality and homosexuality; the scale relies on a
combination of behaviors and feelings rather than a person's self-
identified sexual orientation. A 0 on the Kinsey Scale indicates
complete heterosexuality, while a 6 indicates complete
homosexuality. A three indicates bisexuality, while other numbers
on the scale indicate a mix of heterosexual and homosexual
orientations. Kinsey's colleagues later added an X to the scale to
denote asexuality.
REFLECTION