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The Introduction argues that cognition is influenced first by neurophysiological and biochemical factors, secondly by cultural, social, political and ideological ones and thirdly by the subject matter, that is, what is there to be cognized. An overview of the topics discussed in the succeeding chapters is presented.

Ever since the famous study by Berlin and Kay (1969), colour perception has been cited as one of the prime examples where, despite great surface diversity, robust cross-cultural universals can be found. They found that although colour terminologies appear to differ so widely, these colour terminologies exhibited certain patterns and even obeyed certain general laws. But this apparent vindication of the psychic unity of humans can be challenged not just from the viewpoint of cultural relativism, but also from that of the work of those, such as Mollon, who have analysed the differences in individuals' colour discrimination.

This chapter discusses spatial cognition in humans. It examines the study by Levinson (2003) which identified diversities in human spatial cognition. It compares the findings on spatial cognition with the earlier findings concerning colour, between different human subjects and whole communities. It argues that in terms of physiological and neurological input, there are both commonalities and differences between different human subjects. As to what there is to cognize, the universal elements in the colour cognition case include the physics of the wavelengths of light and in the spatial cognition one, the directionality of gravitational forces — on earth at least — and aspects of the physics and geometry of volumes and shapes.

The dichotomy between nature and culture constitutes a key element in the articulating framework of several intellectual disciplines. The dichotomy is of particular importance for the study of the problem of the psychic unity of humankind. This chapter examines the historical origins of one version of the dichotomy which has been influential in European thought. It then follows up earlier studies that investigated the contexts in which an explicit contrast between two concepts corresponding, roughly, to nature and to culture, that is phusis and nomos, was proposed by certain ancient Greek thinkers. This investigation brings to light bboth the polemical use of that dichotomy and its continuing problematic status in philosophy and social anthropology.

Psychic unity is a fraught concept in anthropology and related fields, yet, I argue, even those of us who doubt the existence of a shared human nature carry an expectation of it into the field. Empathy, which necessarily depends on a degree of psychic unity, has long been a critical tool for doing ethnography though our recognition of this fact comes and goes in the anthropological canon. In this experientialist approach to personhood, set in the changed and changing environment of the remote Australian Aboriginal community of Numbulwar, I draw on emotion talk to explore my intuition that, in spite of our differences, the women I know there and I are very much alike. In this effort, I am guided by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s ideas about primary metaphors and the bodily experiences that underlie them. I focus on an Aboriginal woman’s experience of anger and shame, and on why I think I can understand both what is said and something of the experience behind what is being said. I also, however, consider arguments that shared experience is necessary to the ethnographic project.

This chapter argues that classic Christian theological anthropology has emphasized that all human beings are part of the one human family descending from Adam and Eve, created in the image of God, yet fallen and sinful. These beliefs have been traditionally expounded with reference to Genesis 1–3. Sociocultural anthropologists, in contrast, have often prided themselves on shedding Christian beliefs. The Genesis narrative, in particular, has been the object of attacks. Nevertheless, when some nineteenth-century freethinking anthropologists argued that belief in the monogenesis of the human race was just the result of the influence of an erroneous Judeo-Christian myth, the discipline weeded such thinking out of its midst. Thus, even as it sidelined Christianity, orthodox anthropology from the founding of the discipline to the present has affirmed the doctrine of the psychic unity of humankind. This essay argues that this foundational conviction of anthropology is informed by Christian thought.

This chapter discusses the failings of an understanding of mankind that takes for granted psychic unity and shared innate instincts among all men, and the implications of these failings for research done under the presupposition of some sort of psychic unity. It takes up analyzes, and rejects several proposals on instincts and “native concepts,” as well as examining why they have been attractive or widely accepted. These proposals cover subject matter such as universal grammar, morality instinct, phonology instinct, semantic instinct and syntactic instinct.

This chapter takes up the question of human nature from both a biological/behavioural perspective and the perspective or a shared innate knowledge which informs the human experience. It maintains that a biological/behavioural description of human nature is possible while rejecting the possibility that human nature could be described from the second perspective. The author also examines the ways that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and finally Buddhism conceive of human nature, and how these religious conceptions relate to idea of psychic unity or innate knowledge. Buddhism, the author argues, puts forward an account of human nature which seems plausible. In this account, the core of human nature is the collection of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and interpretations which the human has experienced or formulated.