This volume of essays deals with the problem of relativism, in particular cultural relativism. If our society knows better than other societies, how do we know that it knows better? There is a profound irony in the fact that this self-doubt has become most acute in the one civilisation that has persuaded the rest of the world to emulate it. The claim to cognitive superiority is...
This volume of essays deals with the problem of relativism, in particular cultural relativism. If our society knows better than other societies, how do we know that it knows better? There is a profound irony in the fact that this self-doubt has become most acute in the one civilisation that has persuaded the rest of the world to emulate it. The claim to cognitive superiority is often restricted, of course, to the limited sphere of natural science and technology; and that immediately raises the second main theme of this volume - the differences between the human and natural sciences. These essays reach towards a new style and mode of enquiry - a mixture of philosophy, history and anthropology - that promises to prove more revealing and fruitful.
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[P]artial incomprehensions are common, but they have not, to my knowledge, prevented the drawing-up of an ccount of at least large parts of the social life, language and so on of the community in question. I have heard an anthropologist who had come back from a but recently discovered group in New Guinea say that they really were "very very distant" in their way of thinking, implying that the strenuousness of his effort had had to be much greater than on his other field experiences with "closer" cultural communicaties; but he did not report failure. (查看原文)
还没人写过短评呢
还没人写过短评呢