Anti Anti-Rationalism

In this paper I will outline a view on the problem of rationality of actions from a perspective which I call both anthropological and pragmatic. I will examine how the rationality issue can be perceived in the light of actual ethnographic practice and an historically contextualized, contingent view of culture. In order to present and justify this view I will first delineate the principles of contention between universalists (absolutists, rationalists) and particularists (relativists), and the way the controversy was approached by prominent anthropologists and religious scholars. This explication will allow me to exhibit the most important inconsistencies of the philosophical assumptions of existing theories and the limitations of justified anthropological claims. Finally, I shall give my own account of the controversy discussed. ¹