anthropomorphism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Sociology (4 ed.)
... Attribution of human characteristics to things that are not...
anthropomorphism Reference library
Dictionary of the Social Sciences
... The attribution of human qualities to nonhuman things, such as animals or...
anthropomorphism Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3 ed.)
... . In theology, the attribution to God of human characteristics. Discussion of its propriety has often centred around the concept of analogy...
anthropomorphism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Human Geography
... The attribution of supposedly human qualities to non-humans, such as animals, objects, and gods. Anthropomorphism can be either metaphorical or literal, though they are connected. In human geography, one example is the ‘anthropomorphic map’, when a body of a person (real or fictional) is superimposed on a land map in order to dramatize, entertain, or inform. See also animal geographies...
anthropomorphism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Ecology (5 ed.)
... The attribution of human characteristics to non-human animals, most commonly by supposing non-human behaviour to be motivated by a human emotion that might motivate superficially similar human...
anthropomorphism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Zoology (5 ed.)
... The attribution of human characteristics to non-human animals, most commonly by supposing non-human behaviour to be motivated by a human emotion that might motivate superficially similar human behaviour....
anthropomorphism Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4 ed.)
...anthropomorphism (Gk ἄνθρωπος , ‘man’, and μορφή , ‘form’) In theology the term signifies the attribution to God of human characteristics, feelings, and situations. Jews and Christians have regularly insisted that God is strictly incomparable and incomprehensible; so there has always been much criticism of anthropomorphism within the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Yet that tradition has also wanted to stress that God is somehow personal; so anthropomorphism may also be regarded an an integral part of Judaeo-Christianity. These facts have led to much...
anthropomorphism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Environment and Conservation (3 ed.)
... The attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behaviour to non‐human things, which leads to the treatment of animals, gods, inanimate objects, or natural phenomena as if they have human feelings and...
anthropomorphism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Philosophy (3 ed.)
... The representation of Gods, or nature, or non-human animals, as having human form, or as having human thoughts and intentions. Sometimes this is avowedly metaphorical, the problem being to understand for what it is a...
anthropomorphism n. Quick reference
A Dictionary of Psychology (4 ed.)
... n. The attribution of human characteristics to non-human entities, especially animals. In literature, art, and philosophy, attribution of human emotions to inanimate entities is often called the pathetic fallacy . See also animism ( 1 ) . Compare anthropocentrism . anthropomorphic adj. Of, relating to, or characterized by anthropomorphism. anthropomorphize vb. To attribute human characteristics to non-human entities, especially animals. [From Greek anthropos man or the human species + morphe a form or shape + -ismos ...
ANTHROPOMORPHISM Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (2 ed.)
... , the attribution to God of human qualities, such as human form (anthropomorphism proper, e.g., God’s figure, hands, eyes, etc.) and human emotions (anthropopathism, e.g., God loves, is angry, etc.). Anthropomorphism, which is taken for granted in many primitive and pagan religions, becomes an issue when the concept of a spiritual and transcendent God, especially as elaborated by philosophy, conflicts with apparent anthropomorphism in authoritative texts (e.g., the Bible, rabbinic aggadah , etc.). Nineteenth-century scholars claimed to have...
Anthropomorphism Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature
... . The technique of giving human characteristics, verbal communication, and psychology to animals, anthropomorphism is basic to animal fantasy. It can be a tool for social criticism, as it reflects human behavior. It can also generate greater sympathy for the animal world. A high degree of anthropomorphism results in characters that are essentially humans with animal heads, wearing human clothes, like Richard Scarry 's animals. Russell Hoban 's Frances is a badger who plays with tea sets. Many writers use a limited form of anthropomorphism, as...
Anthropomorphism Reference library
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
... (Gk., ‘of human form’). The attribution of human qualities to the divine, as also to other items in the environment, hence the conceiving of God or the gods, or of natural features, in human form. The status of such language and descriptions has been a matter of fierce debate in those religions which rely on revelations which describe God in terms of human qualities—e.g. sitting on a throne (in Islam, see TANZĪH ). In general the limitations of analogical language and of symbols led in the direction of the via negativa . That is true...
anthropomorphism Quick reference
A Dictionary of the Bible (2 ed.)
... The attribution to the deity of human forms or behaviour, as when Moses and others went up the * mountain and saw God, and ate and drank (Exod. 24: 11), though there are numerous warnings against supposing that God is human (1 Sam. 15: 29). The * prophets proclaimed the living God and they invested him with a clutch of human emotions such as indignation, vengeance, and scorn, as well as joy and compassion. This is metaphorical language, rooted in human experience, and necessary in relation to God in order to use meaningful language of him at...
anthropomorphism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (3 ed.)
... The attribution of human form and behaviour to gods, animals etc. In Greek religion , the poems of Hesiod and Homer gave the Greeks a strongly anthropomorphized conception of the Olympian gods, their appearance, behaviour, and society. The gods were represented as possessing human traits and desires but greatly exceeding them in size, beauty, and power. And, of course, they were immortal. The important Roman gods were also regarded as anthropomorphic, but the Romans lacked the large body of myth available to the Greeks which gave the Greek gods...
anthropomorphism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the Mind (2 ed.)
... . Seeing human capacities in ‘lower’ animals. It is all too easy to ‘project’ human characteristics into other animals, as we do in pictures, statues, and automata. This can be highly misleading in biology and psychology, but as we are derived from earlier species we should expect similarities—and can learn from them. With the recent dominating respect for evolution and evolutionary explanations of much behaviour, instincts, and emotions, criticisms of anthropomorphist analogies have greatly diminished. This is, indeed, the thrust of evolutionary...
Anthropomorphism Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Islam
...Anthropomorphism Assignment of physical attributes to God, forbidden by the Quran according to orthodox Muslims. Because God is utterly unique, there can be no similarity between Him and created entities. Quranic references to God's attributes are typically understood metaphorically as a tool for learning about God and His actual nature. Sufis also use metaphors and allegories with reference to God in mystical poetry to describe their desired relationship to Him. God's attributes are usually listed as seven in number: knowledge, power, life, will, speech,...
anthropomorphism Reference library
Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
... In his De laudibus sanctae crucis , Rabanus Maurus ( c. 840 ) distinguishes the sign ( signum : abstract, like that of the bare cross ) from the image ( imago : e.g. that of the emperor or that of Christ ). From the 10th c. we observe in the representation of God as in that of Christ's cross ( imago crucifixi ) a slow rise to power of the (representative) image to the detriment of the simple sign: hence the anthropomorphic images of God the Father and the Trinity . Without ever having had the theoretical coherence of a formal ...
anthropomorphism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the Body
... Anthropomorphism can refer to the representation of the gods in human form or, more generally, to the attribution of human characteristics to animals or to inanimate objects. In both cases it can be seen as a statement of human superiority — everything else that there is must be just like us — or as an attempt to understand that to which we have no direct cognitive access, by imagining it to behave just like us. The gods of many ancient societies were thoroughly anthropomorphized, both in their form and in their familial and social relationships;...
anthropomorphism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Animal Behaviour (2 ed.)
... The tendency to attribute human characteristics to animals. Human visitors to zoos frequently remark on the human-like behaviour of the animals they see there, and reports of animal behaviour frequently contain anthropomorphic assumptions. Anthropomorphism has its counterpart in the behaviour of other animals. Cases of mistaken identity amongst animals generally result from the misrecognition of particular features of the other species. For example, a cardinal ( Cardinalis cardinalis ) regularly fed a goldfish that learned to surface to obtain...
