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Jarvie on Rationality and Cultural Relativism

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Book cover The Impact of Critical Rationalism

Abstract

Ian C. Jarvie is widely known for his contribution to the “rationality debate” in philosophy of the social sciences. In this chapter, I shall critically examine his view of rationality and rebuttal of cultural relativism. First, I shall discuss his view of rationality while paying attention to its relation to Karl Popper’s critical rationalism. Second, I shall scrutinize Jarvie’s criticism of cultural relativism, after his debate with Peter Winch. Jarvie proposes a middle way to avoid ethnocentrism and cultural relativism by examining Melville Herskovits’s cultural relativism and its relation to the American Anthropological Association’s “Statement on Human Rights.” Third, I shall examine Jarvie’s social and institutional view of rationality by discussing his ideas of weak absolutism, workshop rationality, and social institution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

    Kei Yoshida

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  1. Kei Yoshida
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Correspondence to Kei Yoshida .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO, USA

    Raphael Sassower

  2. Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Nathaniel Laor

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Yoshida, K. (2019). Jarvie on Rationality and Cultural Relativism. In: Sassower, R., Laor, N. (eds) The Impact of Critical Rationalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90826-7_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90826-7_13

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90825-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90826-7

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