Abstract

The following paper analyzes some epistemological categories from anthropological problem of understanding a “strange” form of life. To do this, it is taken the philosophical social program of Peter Winch and in particular his critique of classic anthropology “Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande” by Evans-Pritchard. Winch, following Wittgenstein, represents a true paradigm shift within the analytic tradition of social science, which shows some similarities with hermeneutics, philosophy and intercultural ethics and pragmatism. In this context, the problem of the multiplicity of forms of life and the respective “commensurability” of standards of rationality it is taken. In response to the charge of “relativism” from his theoretical proposal, it can be said that there are two categories of anthropological and social analysis that would allow or that would guide intercultural understanding: formal analogies and limiting notions. Finally, these categories are contrasted with the perspective of Karl-Otto Apel.