文化相对主义述评

A Brief Comment on Cultural Relativism

文化相对主义的产生及其理论的应用,使美国文化人类学有了自己的理论体系,形成了自己的研究方法。由于鲍亚士及其门生对文化相对主义的不断充实与发展,使它替代了进化学说和传播理论,使其理论在一定时期成为权威性的解释而广为流传。这在一定程度上有自己的进步性和合理之处,对丰富文化人类学的研究和推动文化人类学的发展作出了一定的贡献。文化相对主义远不是文化人类学思想的终结,它显然存有理论研究的缺陷和方法论上的不足。

With the constant enrichment and development made by Franz Boas as well as his students, cultural relativism became authoritative and was spread widely. To some extent, this shows its improvement and reasonableness, which contributes to enriching and developing cultural anthropology. However, cultural relativism surely isn＇ t termination of cultural anthropology because it has defects of theoretical studies and shortcomings of methods.