I quote from this blog anothers opinion of another writer whom he disagrees; "the value of a free democracy, and cultural relativists like Frederick who believe > that there is no right and wrong in this world, even from the standpoint of what > is good for humanity as a whole.... OPEN QUOTE 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 anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1887: "...civilization is not something absolute, but ...is relative, and our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes."[1] but did not actually coin the term"cultural relativism.
Where he is going is that the common misnomer has been that Boas was the first to be responsible for articulating the notion of cultural relativism. He goes on to explain that it was first"coined" in 1948 in the Journal of American Anthropologists. I am not sure if I agree and will have to do some further research because if Boas lived before that journal was published, than how does he not get the credit for using the term? Unless he never actually did....interesting we will have to delve a bit deeper........
For further clarification when I say coined i really just mean used the term cultural relativism. I do not mean that it had not already been previously used even before Boas time because I am sure that it had....
2 comments:
I quote from this blog anothers opinion of another writer whom he disagrees; "the value of a free democracy, and cultural relativists like Frederick who believe > that there is no right and wrong in this world, even from the standpoint of what > is good for humanity as a whole.... OPEN QUOTE 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 anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and later popularized by students. Boas first articulated the idea in 1887: "...civilization is not something absolute, but ...is relative, and our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes."[1] but did not actually coin the term"cultural relativism.
Where he is going is that the common misnomer has been that Boas was the first to be responsible for articulating the notion of cultural relativism. He goes on to explain that it was first"coined" in 1948 in the Journal of American Anthropologists. I am not sure if I agree and will have to do some further research because if Boas lived before that journal was published, than how does he not get the credit for using the term? Unless he never actually did....interesting we will have to delve a bit deeper........
William
For further clarification when I say coined i really just mean used the term cultural relativism. I do not mean that it had not already been previously used even before Boas time because I am sure that it had....
william
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