MCAT Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills Question 69: Answer and Explanation

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Question: 69

4. Which of the following, based on the passage, would be most analogous to a historicist view of anthropology?

  • A. A belief that physics consists of a set of unchangeable laws that govern all actions and interactions between objects.
  • B. A belief that chemistry is a science rather than a systematic art, given that its laws can be discovered through empirical evidence.
  • C. A belief that political science is the study of how different political systems create and shape, and are themselves shaped by, human beliefs and values over time.
  • D. A belief that economics is inherently the study of how inherent and consistent human motivations play themselves out in different contexts.

Correct Answer: C

Explanation:

C This is an Analogy question.

Note: The non-historicist view of the German anthropologists was that nature is "a static system of categories that allowed them, in their study of 'natural peoples,' to grasp an unchanging essence of humanity, rather than the ephemeral changes historians recorded." The author also states that "in nature anthropologists sought a realm free from historical change" (paragraph 1). Later in the passage the author states: "Worse than the idealism of Naturphilosophie was, for anthropologists, its view of nature as becoming rather than being, a view antithetical to the concept of nature that anthropologists wanted to use against historicist humanism" (paragraph 4). Therefore, a historicist view of anthropology would be based on studying changes over time rather than some unchanging "essence of humanity." To answer the question, you need to eliminate choices that would be similar to the German anthropologists' approach, and to find the answer that represents studying changes or development over time.

A: No. This, in its study of unchanging laws, would be a non-historicist approach.

B: No. There is no suggestion that this approach to chemistry involves studying changes over time. The reference to the discovery of empirical laws, in fact, suggests the opposite.

C: Yes. This approach to political science would involve studying how political systems and human beliefs and values interact and change over time, or, through history.

D: No. A belief in the existence of inherent and consistent human motivations (similar to an "unchanging essence of humanity") suggests consistency rather than change over time.

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