CULTURAL

ANTHROPOLOGY
FIVE : RELATIVISM

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
Basic idea of relativism
The world appears different to different
people
Perceptions are concerned with the nature
of the mind
the products of various individual
experiences
change through learning
information processed often as result of

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
Different interpretations of
Relativism
I____________________>______________________I
People see reality This becomes basis for
differently & operate misunderstanding
and
according to different judging their worth
rules e.g. exotic customs

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
Historical Overview:
Herodotus, Ancient Greek philosopher
exercised restraint about judging foreign customs
respected different customs, however distasteful
more concerned with observing and reporting
Next thousand years, Christian theology / absolute
laws precluded neutrality towards different
customs

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
Historical Overview:
The European Enlightenment
Importance of rational thought
Experience,
especially education, molded the
human mind. Rousseaus (1751) suggestion:
education could transform apes into humans
Power of enculturation and adaptability of humans
BUT assumption : Rationality was absolute &
desirable

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
Historical Overview:
19th Century Evolutionists
Cultural
evolution is ever-increasing
rationality
Rational
thought as an absolute
standard
Differences between societies due to
degree of mastery of rational thought
e.g. Tylor :

Animism / Polytheism >

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
IMMANUEL KANT
Major German philosopher
Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

Extent to which mind a product of experience

& learning

Certain concepts shared : space and time;

cause and effect; morality

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
FRANZ BOAS

Geographer

Influenced by Kant

Civilization is not something

absolute butrelative, and
our ideas and conceptions
are true only so far as our
civilization goes (1887)
Cultural Relativism = attitude
to comprehend other
cultures

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
Prior experience:
Boas experienced life-threatening
hypothermia on Arctic coast; the Inuit
saved his life
He had great respect for the Inuit as
complex humans with immense
knowledge of their difficult environment
Boas experienced personal racial, ethnic
discrimination

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
Boas time : Most people ethnocentric
about less developed people
Precise, complete data essential for
scientific validity in Anthropology
Not just Family Organization ; Presence
of tools, pottery BUT understanding
meanings of these to their creators
Need to understand thought & emotion
behind observable behavior

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
Boas ideas :

Culture as extrasomatic, non-Biological

therefore Culture and Biology separate,
complementary fields
Language profoundly different systems of
logic challenged Latin & Greek as model for
all language
Archaeology important to study human past.
Independent study required as each human
group has own history

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
American Anthropology as 4 field discipline:
Ethnology
Linguistics
Physical Anthropology
Archaeology
4 fields distinct yet complementary
distinguished from sociology, economics,
political science
different to developments in Britain and France

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
Notion of Relativism
An aspect of the wider intellectual climate of
late 19th early 20th Century
Intellectual energies challenged Absolutist
assumptions of

the nature of reality and

conventional perceptions of reality

KEY CONCEPT FIVE :

RELATIVISM
SCIENCE

ART

Einstein : Relativity
showing Time affected by
Speed

Post-Impressionists e.g.
Gauguin, Renunciation of
Artistic Realism

KEY CONCEPT FIVE : RELATIVISM

Key aspects of Cultural Relativism in Anthropology :

Objective scientific enquiry separates value judgments from
observation
Anthropologists aim : Observe, record, understand.
Emotional response based on cultural and personal
experience, distorts understanding

KEY CONCEPT FIVE : RELATIVISM

Misunderstanding of Cultural
Relativism
Premise: every practice or custom,
irrespective of cruelty or injustice, is
good
Absurd assumption
Contradiction because it amounts to a
value judgment

KEY CONCEPT FIVE : RELATIVISM

The Cultural Relativism

Dilemma
Prescribed observation of other cultures
but emphasis on the uniqueness of each
cultural system meant cultures could
not be compared.
Serious problem for developing
anthropology as a science which requires
generalizations or laws that apply to
more than one case i.e. the comparative
method.

KEY CONCEPT FIVE : RELATIVISM

RUTH BENEDICT
Student of Boas
Patterns of Culture (1932)
Rejection of scientific comparison
Contrasts 4 different groups -internal
consistencies and minds of individuals

KEY CONCEPT FIVE : RELATIVISM

Further Questions for Cultural

Relativism
Can humans in different communities understand
one another at a deep level, even with long
mutual collaboration?
Do some issues, e.g. those involving human
rights, transcend cultural boundaries?
Are some versions of reality more accurate than
others?

References
Benedict, R. (1943). Patterns of Culture. New
York: Houghton Mifflin, 1934.
Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason (1998, orig.
1781) Ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP
Perry, R.J. (2003). Five Concepts in
Anthropological Thinking. Upper Saddle
River, N.J: Prentice-Hall

Conclusion of Relativism, thank you