All Topics  
Methodological relativism

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Methodological relativism
 
 
  Topics Methodological relativism Topic Home

Methodological relativism refers to a practice, by Anthropologists who are concerned with describing actual human behavior
Behavior

Behavior or behaviour refers to the action s or reactions of an object or organism, usually in Relational theory to the environment. Behavior can be conscious or Unconscious mind, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary....
, in which the researcher suspends or brackets his or her own cultural bias
Cultural bias

Cultural bias is when someone is biased due to his or her culture. The alleged problem of cultural bias is sometimes said to be central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology and sociology....
es while attempting to understand belief
Belief

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true....
s and behaviors in their local contexts. Relativism of this kind is intended as a methodological antidote to ethnocentric
Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. The term was introduced in 1906 by William Graham Sumner, a Yale professor and anti-imperialist, in his book Folkways....
 distortions in science, and should not be confused either with cognitive relativism
Cognitive relativism

Cognitive relativism is a philosophy that claims the truth or false of a statement is relative to a social group or individual....
 or moral relativism
Moral relativism

In philosophy moral relativism is the position that Morality or Ethics propositions do not reflect Moral objectivism and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relativism to Society, Culture, History or personal circumstances....
.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Methodological relativism'
Start a new discussion about 'Methodological relativism'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Methodological relativism refers to a practice, by Anthropologists who are concerned with describing actual human behavior
Behavior

Behavior or behaviour refers to the action s or reactions of an object or organism, usually in Relational theory to the environment. Behavior can be conscious or Unconscious mind, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary....
, in which the researcher suspends or brackets his or her own cultural bias
Cultural bias

Cultural bias is when someone is biased due to his or her culture. The alleged problem of cultural bias is sometimes said to be central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology and sociology....
es while attempting to understand belief
Belief

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true....
s and behaviors in their local contexts. Relativism of this kind is intended as a methodological antidote to ethnocentric
Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. The term was introduced in 1906 by William Graham Sumner, a Yale professor and anti-imperialist, in his book Folkways....
 distortions in science, and should not be confused either with cognitive relativism
Cognitive relativism

Cognitive relativism is a philosophy that claims the truth or false of a statement is relative to a social group or individual....
 or moral relativism
Moral relativism

In philosophy moral relativism is the position that Morality or Ethics propositions do not reflect Moral objectivism and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relativism to Society, Culture, History or personal circumstances....
. The need for methodological relativism is implied by the principle of cultural relativism
Cultural relativism

Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropology research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by students....
, which states that an individual human's beliefs and activities are best interpreted in terms of his or her own culture.