Homology (human sciences)

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Religiousness - the deep reverence for a transcendent reality behind appearances - is a universal human quality found in all cultures

A homology ( Greek. Ὁμολογεῖν, homologein "match") generally indicated features several related phenomena whose origin can be traced back to a common root.

Derived from the homology term used in biology , which is sometimes used in this modified form in various human sciences (history, social, cultural studies, ethnology, archeology) in order to make the difference to analogous developments clear.

Homologous features of different human cultures are for example:

All of these things arose once in human development and are universally represented in all cultures.

Any knowledge passed on can also be described as homologous, even if it changes many times over the course of time.

In contrast to biology, the distinction between homologies and analogies is much more difficult in the human sciences, since cultural change takes place much faster than natural evolution and does not manifest itself in genes, but in very different "modes of expression", the authenticity of which is often unclear. A striking example of this is provided by the different approaches to shamanism : While the followers of the esoteric core shamanism according to Michael Harner see it as a global, human universalism - that is, assume a homologous origin; the ethnologist Klaus E. Müller sees shamanism as a kind of “magical science” that has developed analogously outside of Asia.

literature

  • Werner J. Patzelt: Evolutionary Institutionalism: Theory and exemplary studies on evolution, institutionality and historicity. Ergon Verlag, Würzburg 2007. ISBN 978-3-89913-554-1
  • Alexander Gramsch: Comparing as an archaeological method: Analogies in archeologies - with contributions from a conference of the Working Group Theory (T-AG) and an annotated bibliography. Archaeopress, Oxford 2000. ISBN 978-1-8417-1037-2 . Pp. 12, 125-126

Individual evidence

  1. Karl R. Wernhart: Ethnic Religions - Universal Elements of the Religious. Topos, Kevelaer 2004, ISBN 3-7867-8545-7 . Pp. 28-32.
  2. Klaus E. Müller: Shamanism. Healers, spirits, rituals. 4th edition, CH Beck, Munich 2010 (original edition 1997), ISBN 978-3-406-41872-3 . Pp. 117-119.