Many point to Peter Winch’s discussion of rationality, relativism, and religion as a paradigmatic example of cultural relativism. In this paper, I argue that Winch’s relationship to relativism is widely misinterpreted in that, despite his pluralistic understanding of rationality, Winch does allow for universal features of culture in virtue of which cross-cultural understanding and even critique is possible. Nevertheless, I also argue that given the kind of cultural universals that Winch produces, he fails to avoid relativism. This is because in (...) order to provide the standards without which relativism ensues, one requires a certain kind of criteria of rationality, namely, what I here call substantive universals, a kind of criteria which Winch rejects. (shrink)

In this paper I show how to treat problems in the philosophy of the social sciences, in particular anthropology, without the need to settle questions in the theory of meaning about realism and anti?realism. In doing this, I show how it is possible, contrary to received opinion, to ward off conceptual relativism without adoption of realist semantics. The argument involves sketching the feasibility of a viable non?realist concept of objectivity. Having distinguished the required notion of objectivity, I then bring this (...) to bear on issues that have dominated the philosophy of anthropology in recent years: the translatability of ritual beliefs; the adequacy of symbolist anthropology; the concept of rationality. I offer a new way of handling these issues which supports an anti?realist, but intellectualist, account of ritual belief. (shrink)