Methodological relativism

Methodological relativism

Methodological relativism refers to a practice, by Anthropologists who are concerned with describing actual human behavior, in which the researcher suspends or brackets his or her own cultural biases while attempting to understand beliefs and behaviors in their local contexts. Relativism of this kind is intended as a methodological antidote to ethnocentric distortions in science, and should not be confused either with cognitive relativism or moral relativism. The need for methodological relativism is implied by the principle of cultural relativism, which states that an individual human's beliefs and activities are best interpreted in terms of his or her own culture.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Methodological relativism — the view that the meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference. Relativists claim that humans understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of, for example, their historical and cultural context.… …   Mini philosophy glossary

  • Relativism — Compare moral relativism, aesthetic relativism, social constructionism, cultural relativism, and cognitive relativism. Relativism is the idea that some elements or aspects of experience or culture are relative to, i.e., dependent on, other… …   Wikipedia

  • Relativism — the view that the meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference. Relativists claim that humans understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of, for example, their historical and cultural context.… …   Mini philosophy glossary

  • relativism — The word relativism is used loosely to describe intellectual positions which reject absolute or universal standards or criteria. Thus, epistemological relativism is the view that there are no universal criteria of knowledge or truth. What counts… …   Dictionary of sociology

  • methodological pluralism — During the 1970s sociologists were prone to argue that a long standing positivistic hegemony in sociology had crumbled, and that the idea that there was one style of social research (underpinned by a unified philosophy of social science and… …   Dictionary of sociology

  • Moral relativism — the view that the meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference. Relativists claim that humans understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of, for example, their historical and cultural context.… …   Mini philosophy glossary

  • Linguistic relativism — the view that the meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference. Relativists claim that humans understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of, for example, their historical and cultural context.… …   Mini philosophy glossary

  • Cultural relativism — Compare moral relativism, aesthetic relativism, social constructionism, and cognitive relativism. Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human s beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual s… …   Wikipedia

  • Glossary of philosophical isms — This is a list of topics relating to philosophy that end in ism . compactTOC NOTOC A * Absolutism – the position that in a particular domain of thought, all statements in that domain are either absolutely true or absolutely false: none is true… …   Wikipedia

  • World view — A comprehensive world view (or worldview) is a term calqued from the German word Weltanschauung (Audio IPA|De Weltanschauung.ogg| [ˈvɛlt.ʔanˌʃaʊ.ʊŋ] ) Welt is the German word for world , and Anschauung is the German word for view or outlook. It… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”