1. Introduction. Cultural relativity is one of the most important conceptions to which anthropology and sociology have devoted much attention in recent years. It is a theory of human conduct based upon observational studies of different cultures and different societies. Many of the leaders in the various social sciences are currently among the advocates of this viewpoint. The burden of these pages, however, is that cultural relativity is flying under false colors: it claims to be empirical but is illogical; it (...) claims to be objective but is surreptitiously moral; it claims to be reasonable but elevates irrationalism; it claims to be scientific but prevents the development of an experimental science of sociocultural conduct. These are serious charges to lodge against leading social scientists; to detail them all would require much more space than is here available. Therefore this paper will be devoted to an incomplete exposition of only two points, namely, that cultural relativity is surreptitiously moral, and, that it deprives man of rational grounds for decision in certain crucial areas. To put the matter bluntly, the advocates of cultural relativity, while they allege themselves to be scientifically amoral, sneak in through the back door a peculiarly crude form of ethnocentric morality which is clearly contrary to the observable facts of human behavior; and, while presenting a presumably scientific analysis of human conduct, leave us only with personal taste as the basis for making certain important decisions.2. Cultural Relativity Defined. Cultural relativity, briefly stated, asserts that any set of customs and institutions, or way of life, is as valid as any other. It may be well to let some representative cultural relativists speak for themselves at this point, in order to show that the summary statement of their position, just given, is correct. The author of an excellent and widely adopted textbook in cultural anthropology stresses the dignity inherent in every body of custom, and abjures us to be tolerant of the ways of other people:… cultural relativism is a philosophy which … lays stress on the dignity inherent in every body of custom, and on the need for tolerance of conventions though they may differ from one's own … the relativistic point of view brings into relief the validity of every set of norms for those people whose lives are guided by them, and the values these represent. … The very core of cultural relativism is the social discipline that comes of respect for differences—of mutual respect. Emphasis on the worth of many ways of life, not one, is an affirmation of the values of each culture. Such emphasis seeks to understand and to harmonize goals, not to judge and destroy those that do not dovetail with our own,. (shrink)

Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done (...) by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology. (shrink)

(1992). The rituals of science: Comments on Abir‐Am (with response) Social Epistemology: Vol. 6, The Historical Ethnography of Scientific Rituals, pp. 373-387.

Images of Native Americans and of aspects of Native American culture are common in advertisements in the United States. Three such images can be distinguished — the Noble Savage, the Civilizable Savage and the Bloodthirsty Savage images. The aim of this paper is to argue that the use of such images is not morally acceptable because these images depend upon an underlying conception of Native Americans that denies that they are human beings. By so doing, it also denies to them (...) any moral standing and thus any claim to moral consideration and treatment. I begin by arguing that the traits which are distinctively human are fostered only within a cultural framework consisting of the accumulated knowledge and activities of a group of human beings. I then argue that savages are conceptualized as natural and cultureless beings. Furthermore, within the traditional Western conceptualization of the world mere natural objects have no moral standing. Thus, it follows that Native Americans insofar as they are also merely natural objects would have no standing or status as moral beings. The conception of Native Americans as savages undercuts the very conditions for the possibility of moral respect. I then turn to an application of these principles to some current commercial uses of images of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples. (shrink)

Philip Pettit has argued that all semantically basic terms are learned in response to ostended examples and all non-basic terms are defined via them. Michael Smith and Daniel Stoljar maintain that this “global response-dependence” entails noumenalism, the thesis that reality possesses an unknowable, intrinsic nature. Surprisingly Pettit acknowledges this, contending instead that his noumenalism, like Kant’s, can be construed ontologically or epistemically. Moreover, Pettit insists, construing his noumenalism epistemically renders it unproblematic. The article shows that construing noumenalism epistemically prevents Pettit (...) from knowing whether members of different communities respond to different properties in the world or the same properties differently. Pettit then faces a trilemma. He can construe noumenalism ontologically and confront Smith and Stoljar’s charge. He can construe noumenalism epistemically and confront the author’s charge. Or he can reject global response-dependence. After explaining why Pettit should choose the middle horn, the article closes with lessons about global response-dependence generally. (shrink)

This paper explores the issue of democracy and the role of the democratic classroom in the development of society in general, and the way in which educators understand and deal with diversity in particular. The first part of the paper explores different meanings of democracy and how they can be manifested in the classroom. We argue that the idea of a ‘democratic classroom’ is far too broad a category; democracy is defined in action and can have realist or pragmatic characteristics, (...) elitist or pluralist roots. The realist form of social education was championed by political scientist Charles Merriam, while a social educative process more dependent on pragmatic problem solving was pursued by educational philosopher John Dewey and those who followed in his theoretical wake. The history of democracy in the United States, and the battles of how to import different meanings of democracy into the classroom over the course of the 20th century is explored, suggesting that the educational establishment has a tendency to adopt more realist/elitist forms of civic education. We present five ‘democratic’ classrooms with different characteristics to illustrate the different characteristics social education can exhibit. In the second part of the paper we discuss the relationship between different types of democratic classrooms and issues of race/ethnicity/culture. (shrink)

The various behavioral disciplines model human behavior in distinct and incompatible ways. Yet, recent theoretical and empirical developments have created the conditions for rendering coherent the areas of overlap of the various behavioral disciplines. The analytical tools deployed in this task incorporate core principles from several behavioral disciplines. The proposed framework recognizes evolutionary theory, covering both genetic and cultural evolution, as the integrating principle of behavioral science. Moreover, if decision theory and game theory are broadened to encompass other-regarding preferences, they (...) become capable of modeling all aspects of decision making, including those normally considered “psychological,” “sociological,” or “anthropological.” The mind as a decision-making organ then becomes the organizing principle of psychology. (Published Online April 27 2007) Key Words: behavioral game theory; behavioral science; evolutionary theory; experimental psychology; gene-culture coevolution; rational actor model; socialization. (shrink)

This comparison between Boudon and Mises focuses on the main tenets of their respective conceptions of social science. It covers action theory, the theory of belief, the epistemology of social science, and also addresses the topic of liberalism.

For the larger part of modern western intellectual history, it has been assumed that the study of morality and religion requires special methodology, insulated from, and in some important aspects incongruent with, the scientific method commonly used in the realm of natural sciences. Furthermore, even if it would be granted that moral and religious behavior is amendable to scientific analysis, the prospects of using evolutionary theory in particular to do the heavy lifting in explanation of these phenomena have been bleak, (...) since many scholars doubted that a biological theory could possibly offer any valuable contribution. Recent advances in the fields of Evolutionary Ethics and Cognitive Science of Religion disprove both claims, emphasizing empirically founded explanations, demonstrating extraordinarily high degree of methodological consilience, and revealing utmost importance of the application of evolutionary theory in fields of study once deemed to be exclusive domains of social sciences and philosophy. (shrink)

Western scholarly literature suggests that (1) weaning is initiated by mothers; (2) weaning takes place within a few days once mothers decide to stop nursing; (3) mothers employ specific techniques to terminate nursing; (4) semi-solid foods (gruels and mashed foods) are essential when weaning; (5) weaning is traumatic for children (it leads to temper tantrums, aggression, etc.); (6) developmental stages in relationships with mothers and others can be demarcated by weaning; and (7) weaning is a process that involves mothers and (...) children exclusively, with weaned children moving from close relationships with their mothers to strengthened relationships with other children. In many respects, these presumptions are consistent with contemporary Euroamerican practices: nursing stops early (usually before six months) relative to other cultures and takes place over a few days or weeks with the help of bottles and baby foods. Because bottles are available, weaning seldom appears traumatic, but it is seen as an important step in the establishment of independence between mothers and infants. By contrast, weaning from the bottle is often perceived as traumatic. Despite considerable academic and popular interest, weaning has seldom been studied systematically, especially in small-scale cultures. Qualitative and quantitative data from a study of Bofi foragers in Central Africa are used here to evaluate the cross-cultural applicability of the assumptions summarized above. (shrink)

Argentina es el país que mayores volúmenes de fernetconsume en el mundo. En el 2012 se intentó llevar a cabo en Mendiolaza, un festival popular alrededor del fernet, para romper un record Guinness. Sin embargo, una disputa que se inició entre diversos actores terminaría sepultando laFernet Fest. Pese a no realizarse dicho evento, los debates expresados a través de distintos medios de comunicación en aquel contexto enriquecieron, desde las ciencias sociales, las distintas aristas de la discusión en torno a la (...) gastronomía y el turismo. El objetivo de este trabajo fue analizar los emergentes que surgieron en torno al mencionado debate en el marco de la eventual realización de la Fernet Fest. Metodológicamente, se utilizó etnografía virtual para el análisis de artículos de diversos medios gráficos, como así también de sitios de internet y redes sociales. A través del análisis de las diversas voces, fue posible delinear los principales argumentos que surgieron a favor y en contra de la realización del festival, que consideramos son importantes a la hora de pensar sobre las festividades vinculadas al turismo que tienen como componentes centrales las bebidas alcohólicas. Palabras claves:turismo, gastronomía, festividades, fernet,Argentina Argentina is the country that consumes the largest volumes of fernet in the world. In 2012, a popular festival around fernet was attempted in Mendiolaza to break a Guinness record. However, a dispute that began between various actors would end up burying the Fernet Fest. In spite of not having said event, the debates expressed through different press in that context enriched, from the social sciences, the different edges of the discussion around gastronomy and tourism. The objective of this work was to analyze the emerging arguments that arose around the mentioned debate in the framework of the eventual realization of the Fernet Fest. Methodologically, virtual ethnography was used to analyze articles from various newspapers, as well as from internet sites and social networks. Through the analysis of the different voices, it was possible to delineate the main arguments that arose in favor and against the realization of the festival, which we consider important when thinking about the festivities linked to tourism, whose main components are alcoholic drinks. Key words:tourism, gastronomy, festivities, fernet, Argentina. (shrink)

Bodily movement has a deeper meaning than modern sport science might recognize. It can have religious undertones, and in modern societies, it is sometimes related to the building of national identity. In the study, two cases of bodily practice are compared. Norwegian ski has a relation to friluftsliv (outdoor activities) and is highly significant for modern Norwegian identity. Indian yoga is related to the traditional ayurveda medicine and to Hindu spirituality, and obtained an important place in the process of anti-colonial (...) nationalism. The aim is to demonstrate how Norwegian skiing and Indian yoga as national body and movement cultures in different ways, show a complex connection between ‘ancient roots’ and modern transformations of cultural identity. Gliding on skis, sitting, and breathing in yoga make up the basis on which people have built identities of their collective ‘we’. (shrink)

The term “value” has a wide range of current usage in philospohy and the sciences. Descriptively, a man's “values” may refer to all his attitudes for-or-against anything. His values include his perferences and avoidances, his desire-objects and aversion-objects, his pleasure and pain tendencies, his goals, ideals, interests and disinterests, what he takes to be right and wrong, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, useful and useless, his approvals and disapprovals, his criteria of taste and standards of judgment, and so forth.

There were three broad categories of academic responses to Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin, 1948): method; findings; and broader reflections on the book’s place in American social life and democracy. This article focuses primarily on archival academic responses to Kinsey’s work that appeared in the year following the book’s publication. Many academics agreed that some aspects of Kinsey’s method were flawed and that his interpretations sometimes overreached his raw data. Nonetheless, they also agreed (...) that no one else had gathered such a diverse sampling of interviewees whose behaviors Kinsey could use to create new interpretive models of human sexuality. As Kinsey’s research was deliberately interdisciplinary, his research and statistical methodologies began to catch on in the human sciences and to encourage academics and intellectuals to rethink their human science practices. As academics reflected on the volume’s larger meaning in American life, several of them thought it exemplified the worst American values (emphases on money and size) while others saw the very existence of the Male volume as an excellent example of the ability of free citizens to pursue and to publish research on any topic. While members of the American intelligentsia championed the Male volume and its findings as democratic, the reception of Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin and Gebhard, 1953), published at an intense moment of the cold war, was viewed as a communist threat to American security for revealing the sexual secrets of the public. (shrink)

Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen’s (1996) influential account of “cultures of honor” speculates that honor norms are a socially-adaptive deterrence strategy. This theory has been appealed to by multiple empirically-minded philosophers, and plays an important role in John Doris and Alexandra Plakias’ (2008) antirealist argument from disagreement. In this essay, I raise four objections to the Nisbett-Cohen deterrence thesis, and offer another theory of honor in its place that sees honor as an agonistic normative system regulating prestige competitions. Since my (...) account portrays honor norms as radically different from liberal ones, it actually strengthens Doris and Plakias’ case in some respects: cultures of honor are not merely superficially different from Western liberal ones. Nonetheless, the persistent appeal of honor’s principles, and their moral plausibility in certain contexts, suggests not antirealism, but pluralism—a reply on behalf of realism that itself has considerable empirical support. (shrink)

This article presents an overview and discussion of qualitative research in education by analyzing the roles of researchers, the history of the field, its use in policymaking, and its future influence on educational reform. The article begins by describing the unique position that qualitative educational researchers have in higher education, as they often attempt to serve both academic and policymaking audiences. The article then moves to discuss the ascent of qualitative methods in the social sciences and educational research. The article (...) concludes by attempting to work through a number of pressing concerns that qualitative researchers may face in upcoming decades; specifically, the final section presents possible strategies to improve the relevance and impact of qualitative researchers? work on reframing educational policy at local, state, and federal levels to meet the demands of equality and social justice. (shrink)

In his classical paper C. Wright Mills suggests a novel view of the motives within the framework of sociology of knowledge. Contrasting an approach of sociology of knowledge to subjectivistic understanding of the motives as outer manifestation of the inner elements, Mills locates a particular types of action within typical frames of normative actions and socially situated clusters of motive. Motives is something that is imputed and avowed by actors, therefore it is necessary to consider, first, how different motives are (...) assigned by different actors to themselves and others in certain social and historical situations, and second, how different vocabularies of motive conflict with each other and replace each other over time. In this case motives are not a manifestations of some inner impulses but a justifications of the behavior. (shrink)

Shame is a painful emotion concerned with failure to live up to certain standards, norms, or ideals. The subject feels that she falls in the regard of others; she feels watched and exposed. As a result, she feels bad about the person that she is. The most popular view of shame is that someone only feels ashamed if she fails to live up to standards, norms, or ideals that she, herself, accepts. In this paper, I provide support for a different (...) view, according to which shame is about failure to live up to public expectations. Such a view of shame has difficulties explaining why an audience is central to shame, why shame concerns the self as a whole, and why the social rank of someone affects their ability to shame others. These features, I argue, are best explained by reference to the descent of shame in the emotion connected with submission in nonhuman animals. The function of submission—to appease relevant social others—also throws light on the sort of emotion that shame is. From the point of view of other people, a subject who experiences shame at her own failing is someone who is committed to living together with others in a socially sanctioned way. The argument is not that we must understand the nature of shame in terms of what it evolved for, but that its heritage is important to understanding the emotion that shame has become. (shrink)

Differences between various groups and classes in perceptions of social reality result in different interpretations of social and cultural events—collective representations—which can cause opposition and conflicts among social groups. This contribution analyzes this complex problem, especially in relation to two pivotal concepts: individualism and collectivism. In most political discussions, these concepts are used in opposition to each other, even though they are always interdependent. Moreover, in a modern society we can distinguish between seven types of individualism and six types of (...) collectivism. Finally, this analysis of collective representations is connected with questions related to the present problems confronting the European Union. With the introduction of the concepts of collective representation, collective identity, and the opposition between individualism and collectivism, we have paved our way toward an efficient debate about the future of the EU. (shrink)

Consider the following facts about the average, philosophically untrained moral relativist: (1.1) The average moral relativist denies the existence of “absolute moral truths.” (1.2) The average moral relativist often expresses her commitment to moral relativism with slogans like ‘What’s true (or right) for you may not be what’s true (or right) for me’ or ‘What’s true (or right) for your culture may not be what’s true (or right) for my culture.’ (1.3) The average moral relativist endorses relativistic views of morality (...) without endorsing relativistic views about science or mathematics. (1.4) The average moral relativist takes moral relativism to be non-relatively true and does not think there is anything contradictory about doing so. (1.5) The average moral relativist adopts an egalitarian attitude toward a wide range of moral values, practices and beliefs, claiming they are all equally legitimate or correct. (1.6) The average moral relativist often admonishes others to be more tolerant of those who engage in alternative ethical practices and to refrain from making negative moral judgments about them. (1.7) The average moral relativist sometimes makes negative moral judgments about the behavior of others—e.g., by harshly judging moral absolutists to be intolerant—but is less inclined to do so when the relativist’s metaethical views are salient in a context of judgment. (1.8) The average moral relativist takes anthropological evidence concerning the worldwide diversity of ethical views and practices to support moral relativism. (shrink)

How do ethics show up in the everyday behaviors and conversations of researchers in a scientific laboratory? How does the microcosmic culture of the laboratory shape researchers’ understandings of scientific ethics? We, an interdisciplinary team representing anthropology, computer science, and rhetorical studies, investigated these questions in two university STEM labs. Similar to previous work mapping out the epistemic cultures, we sought to understand the ethical cultures of these research groups. We observed their lab meetings for several months and conducted interviews (...) with members of the research laboratories. Ultimately, we recognized two distinct ethical cultures within the two laboratories: one focused on the relationship between science and social justice, and the other focused on clean data and accuracy as an ethical issue. These two distinct ethical cultures were discernable through ethnography, close reading of laboratory members’ language, as well as broad-scale topic modeling. Our project complements previous studies of ethics in science that have focused on codes of ethics or student curricula as ways in which scientists develop an understanding of scientific ethics. Our project demonstrates that everyday interactions between the members of scientific research labs additionally shape, at a decidedly local level, how scientists understand and ultimately approach ethical decision-making in the scientific research process. (shrink)

A bewildering array of sciences, theories, and methodologies offer researchers many difficult choices when studying emotion or designing affective technologies. Thus, clarity of focus is a prime virtue of good work, as illustrated in the Aylett and Paiva (2012) article. The social sciences remain fundamentally undecided about how to conceptualize human variations, including how to measure culture and personality, and even about whether these two commonly used words have real meaning. This disagreement is pronounced in human-centered computing, because cognitive and (...) rational-choice perspectives are technically easiest to apply, and these make little room for culture and personality. The article employs a modular approach, which can inspire researchers following alternative conceptualizations to substitute their own preferred choices. (shrink)

Anthropologists, through participant observation, play a large role in creating the very locus of their research: socio-cultural context. Challenges to the social-scientific ‘objectivity’ of this process draw strength from historical precedent, and serve a vital role in the larger anthropological project of confronting, as both critic and product of Western thought, its inherent tensions. In this paper, I focus on two types of epistemological bias that construct and reinforce the validity of objective knowledge: objectivism and literalism. An analysis of ethnographic (...) treatments of the philosophical concerns of metaphor theory and phenomenology of the senses illustrates both the difficulty and utility of taking on the epistemological underpinnings of social science. (shrink)

In recent decades, neoclassical economists have made heroic efforts to accommodate within the confines of the concept of rational utility maximization the fact that individual behavior is significantly affected by moral considerations. This article argues the merits of using an alternative approach: recognizing that individuals pursue at least two irreducible sources of value or “utility”, pleasure and morality. The possibility that some additional utilities may have to be recognized is explored. This raises the concern that conceptual anarchy will break out, (...) which in turn will force a search for a common denominator, and thus a return to one overarching utility. Arguments are presented to show that this concern is unfounded. The main focus of the article is a criticism of the monoutility conception and a brief for separating the sense of discharging one's moral obligations from all other satisfactions. The article first deals with general conceptual points, and then cites both everyday observations and empirical evidence in support of this position. (shrink)

Archaeologists have proposed that behavioral knowledge of a tool can be conceptualized as a “recipe”—a unit of cultural transmission that combines the preparation of raw materials, construction, and use of the tool, and contingency plans for repair and maintenance. This parallels theories in cognitive psychology that behavioral knowledge is hierarchically structured—sequences of actions are divided into higher level, partially independent subunits. Here we use an agent-based simulation model to explore the costs and benefits of hierarchical learning relative to holistic learning, (...) where entire behavioral sequences are learned in an all-or-nothing fashion, and diffusionist learning, where actions are completely independent. Hierarchical learning is favored under the reasonable assumptions that learning is associated with some degree of both error and cost, and that behavior can be grouped into subunits that repeat in one or more tool recipes. These general predictions can be tested in the archaeological and ethnographic record. Recent advances in evolutionary developmental biology have revealed a number of parallels between the hierarchically structured, recipe-like organization of behavioral knowledge that we examine here and the manner in which biological organisms develop. (shrink)

(1992). The rituals of science: Comments on Abir‐Am (with response) Social Epistemology: Vol. 6, The Historical Ethnography of Scientific Rituals, pp. 373-387.

After a brief introduction, “cultures: multi-culture, cross-culture, interculture”, this essay proceeds in two major sections, “China and the West in Contrast” on how China and the West inter-differ, and “China and the West in Interculture” on how China and the West interculture. First, three ac- tual examples are cited to show how the West is digital, analytical, in either-or, while China is concrete, subtle, in both-and. Next, logic, time, music, kids, etc., are cited to tell of how China and the (...) West inter-differ to inter-critique to inter-correct, to compose the hope of the world. The vast, exciting, and crucial theme of world interculture, concrete and general, is thus compressed in less than twenty pages. Global interculture is so vast that any essay on it risks playing with vague generality. This essay concretely details two extremely contrasting cultures, the West and China, even on general time, logic, and grammar, starkly how the centralities of eternity and time are reversed, how logic is all bare in the West but turned invisible as bone-structure in China, and how the West strictly enforces explicit grammar while China subtly slides from one word-category to another. Typically, elusive “no do” unintelligible in the West but constantly concrete is story-ex- plained to highlight the West-China contrast. Concrete elucidation of general “global interculture” makes this short essay significant. (shrink)

Abstract The concept of culture was originally an expression of German nationalism, which reacted to the French Enlightenment by asserting the uniqueness and incomparability of all cultures as historical creations. This understanding of cultural diversity, which prevailed in American anthropology, is widely understood to imply the moral equality of all cultures. Yet its relativism originally applied to different individuals socialized in the values of their culture, rather than to different cultures. The debate over multiculturalism, which presupposes cultural relativism, ignores this (...) distinction. The vogue of multiculturalism reflects the decline of the Left, quests for community and identity, and an actual reduction in diversity more than a genuine appreciation of different cultures. (shrink)

I propose to treat this broad topic in terms of three main questions: 1.The shift in emphasis in anthropological research from culture-history-culture philosophy to “social engineering”,2.The question of whether these two types of emphasis are related or not, and if so in what manner, and3.The implications of anthropology for other fields of knowledge.

Hoy en día vivimos aún con el estereotipo de las dos culturas, con la idea de una cierta incomunicabilidad entre ciencias y humanidades, en términos más generales: entre la esfera de la ciencia y la de la cultura. Este artículo presenta una visión filosófica de la relación entre cultura y ciencia más allá de la tópica dicotomía, sosteniendo en cambio un enfoque en el que se concibe la ciencia como fenómeno cultural. Un recorrido histórico-sistemático por algunos hitos de la filosofía (...) de la cultura y la filosofía de la ciencia muestra cómo las dos se compenetran entre sí y se influyen mutuamente. Poner el foco en las convergencias entre ambas permite identificar una serie de preocupaciones y retos compartidos que conciernen al campo de la epistemología en su conjunto: afrontar la complejidad de la condición epistémica y la vulnerabilidad cognitiva del ser humano; hacer frente a las posiciones más extremas tanto del relativismo como del fundamentalismo; y desarrollar un concepto de responsabilidad epistémica en los distintos ámbitos de conocimiento para contrarrestar la cultura de desconfianza y la percepción de nuestra época como era de la posverdad. (shrink)

Kroeber’s "The Superorganic" (1917) stands as the first extreme statement of cultural holism. Some have compared it to Durkheim, the majority to Boas; some have denied any evolutionary message, others read in it a theory of "emergent evolution" arising from his transcendental holism. What was it, exactly? When understood as part of a trilogy comprising two other articles (one from 1915, the other from 1919), it emerged that his extreme brand of cultural holism was a necessary tool to carry out (...) a relatively hidden evolutionary agenda. This led me to rethink his evolutionism, to deny that he was a cultural determinist, to understand this part of his anthropology in terms of "epistemological obstacles" (Bachelard 1938), and show that it reemerges in Appadurai’s understanding of globalization (1996). (shrink)

Some anthropologists advocate going back to Boas’s anthropology to retrieve his sense of the individual and agency, among other things. Such a "psycho-logical Boas" could only exist in his holistic works. Elsewhere, I argued in a very synthetic way that Boas’s ethnography was not holistic. Here, I move a step further; perusing the very texts that famous commentators have singled out to prove Boas’s holism, I discover no holism; I find history as mere movement in space, and no individual agents; (...) hence, no real psychology or agency. I only discern cultural fragments randomly assembling to form regional cultures. Key Words: neo-Boasian anthropology • Boas • holism • history of anthropology. (shrink)

Human culture is built upon nature to help humans adapt to their environment – first natural, but later natural-cultural. Cultural practices are aimed at aiding survival in changing environments, and in different settings they meet different environmental pressures, causing later changes in trajectories. According to cultural evolutionism, behaviours, ideas and artefacts are subject to inheritance, competition, accumulation of modifications, adaptation, geographical distribution, convergence and changes of function – these are mechanisms present also in biological evolution. In the following paper, we (...) examine women’s dance and physical exercise practices, which contain similar postures performed in comparable circumstances, as found in initiation ritual dances in chosen East African communities and in Slavic gymnastics for women in the Belarusian tradition. In times of globalization and the mixing of cultures, the position on knees and elbows is recontextualized in a visually attractive form of contemporary dances like Kangamoko and Baikoko, or more widely different variants of ‘twerking’ and reconstructed physical exercises. Approaching ‘twerking’ positions, especially on knees and elbows as a cross-genre performance, we find common roots in the communal support for women’s good wife and mother status teachings in various cultures, showing the importance of women’s circles, women’s health and well-being for the community. (shrink)

If someone unintentionally breaks the rules, do they break the rules? In the abstract, the answer is obviously “yes.” But, surprisingly, when considering specific examples of unintentional, blameless rule-breaking, approximately half of people judge that no rule was broken. This effect, known as excuse validation, has previously been observed in American adults. Outstanding questions concern what causes excuse validation, and whether it is peculiar to American moral psychology or cross-culturally robust. The present paper studies the phenomenon cross-culturally, focusing on Korean (...) and American adults, and proposes a new explanation of why people engage in excuse validation, in terms of competing forces in human norm-psychology. The principal findings are that Americans and Koreans engaged in excuse validation at similar levels, and older adults were more likely to engage in excuse validation. (shrink)

Wants and desires are central to ordinary experience and to aesthetic, philosophical, and theological thought. Yet despite a burgeoning interest in the history of emotions research, their history as objects of scientific study has received little attention. This historiographical neglect mirrors a real one, with the retreat of introspection in the positivist human sciences of the early 20th century culminating in the relative marginalization of questions of psychic interiority. This article therefore seeks to explain an apparent paradox: the attempt to (...) develop a comprehensive theory of ‘why … we want what we want’ in the 1940s by esteemed American ‘neo-behaviorist’ psychologist Edward Tolman – a proponent of a methodology famous for its prohibition on appeals to unobservable mental phenomena. Though chiefly known today for his theory of ‘cognitive maps’, Tolman also sought to map the contours of desire as such, integrating Freudian and behaviorist models of the ‘drives’ to develop a complex iconography of the universal structures of motivation. Close attention to Tolman's striking maps offers a compelling limit case for what could and could not be captured within an anti-mentalist framework, and illuminates an important precursor to theories of motivational ‘affect’ in the postwar cognitive and neurosciences. His work upsets a standard chronology that centers on the ‘cognitive revolution’ of the 1960s, and points to the significance of psychoanalysis to an earlier turn to cognitivism. Tolman concluded his theory pointed ‘in the direction of more socialism’ – a reminder of the politically labile anti-essentialism of behaviorism's commitment to mental plasticity. (shrink)

This paper explores Dilthey's "descriptive psychology "and its significance for the anthropology of consciousness. To do justice to the complexities of Dilthey's project a significant portion of the paper is devoted to an exposition of the basic tenets of his"descriptive psychology." Most notably, his views on"experience,""aconsciousness,""introspection,"and"objectified mind"are discussed before turning to examine his concept of the"acquired psychicnexus." After outlining these basic tenets the paper turns to explore how Dilthey's "descriptive psychology"can serve to shed light on current anthropological research on the (...) experience of pain. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the contemporary relevance of Dilthey's project as it explores how his ideas may further inform current theoretical perspectives in anthropology about the relationship between consciousness, culture, and experience. (shrink)

This article focuses on the theory of solidarity presented by Émile Durkheim in The Division of Labour in Society ([1893] 1969). Despite its popularity, the distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity has received a lot of criticism. Durkheim allegedly was unable to demonstrate the superior integrating force of modern organic solidarity, while this was his central thesis at the time. A second critique challenges his macrostructural point of view. However, by confronting Durkheim’s classical theory with contemporary work, notably Honneth’s theory (...) of recognition, we can deduce a reformulated framework that is less vulnerable to the afore-mentioned critiques. On the one hand, we specify mechanical and organic solidarity as a dialectical synthesis of both internalized universalistic principles and particularistic emotional orientations. On the other, we incorporate the foregoing typology in a cyclical model that implies interacting processes of inclusion and individualization. (shrink)