It is argued that anthropologists become moral relativists by mistake typically in two ways: (1) by confusing moral with factual discourse (dubbed the Normativist Fallacy) which derives in turn from a failure to distinguish adequately between direct and indirect discourse in the description of moral systems and preferences; or (2) by confusing definitive with hypothetical statements in descriptive ethics (the Definitivist Fallacy). Two representative arguments illustrating these errors are analyzed and some morals drawn from the results regarding the status of (...) relativist arguments in descriptive ethics and the prerogatives of applied anthropologists. (shrink)

Criteria of quotationality vary in nonlinguistic symbol systems, and there is the question whether quotation is even possible in some contexts. For instance, can one painting or dance movement quote another? If a painting is autographic, how can it be duplicated in a pictorial quotation? And if scored dance gestures can be duplicated like words and sentences, what then corresponds to the reference giving quotation marks in language—stage-winks fore and aft? This is enough to show that different arts have different (...) problems with quotation centering around the separate issues of establishing criteria of duplication and of reference. (shrink)

A collection of essays discussing the philosophical perspectives of thinking and education, this book considers such subjects as the development of education, the role of micro-computers in science education and theories of education.