Understanding Key Concepts: Nature, Culture, and Society

Definitions

Nature: A term used in several ways: the essence or substance of being, regarded as a principle or origin of operations (in the nature of man is growing, talking, etc., not roasted fly), all external things as opposed the subject's interiority, the world itself as everything tidy and created by God.

Cosmos: The world as an orderly universe. It opposes Chaos, which, according to the ancients, preceded it.

Environment: Everything that affects a living being's circumstances and the special conditions of the life of people or society.

Culture: In one sense, culture refers to the potentialities and personality of a human (to be a cultured, educated human). In another, it is the higher feature set of a people, period, or civilization. In modern times, culture has sometimes been seen as primary to social civilization and above religion, sometimes even opposed to it.

Man: A rational animal, according to the classical definition (genus and specific difference), comparing humans to what is below them. Spirit incarnate, according to another definition, compared with higher spiritual beings.

Individual: That which is undivided in itself and divided (or separate) from the rest. Describes the primary substances of living nature (plants, animals, and humans are individuals, but not inert things).

Identity: The first principle of thought: all logical content is equal to itself.

Relativism: The theory that holds the relative or conditional nature of morality or knowledge (truth) about humans or their time, as knowing subjects or as subjects of activity.

People: A process in a cultural association.

Power: The domain or authority humans possess.

Territory: The physical element.

Citizen: Citizenship is defined as the condition of an individual member of a community who is legally attached, just a part of it. Citizenship allows the enjoyment of political and economic rights and involves fulfilling moral duties to the community. In ancient Rome and Greece, only certain individuals enjoyed citizenship, depending on their family or economic status. With the liberal revolutions of the nineteenth century, these differences began to disappear, a process largely completed by the twentieth century. In Spain, one speaks of Spanish citizens, but not EU citizens or citizens of the world; similarly, one would be deemed a citizen before being Catalan or Basque. A citizen is a person belonging to a nation who has rights and duties that include them in a territorial space and a democratic legal order.