Cultural relativism
Richard Feinberg, an anthropologist, identifies cultural relativism as having three types: contextual, ethical and epistemological. Contextual relativism is defined as members of a community or society having beliefs and practices that are represented through symbols and meanings that need to be understood within that culture. A practice that appears to be similar in two different cultures could be understood completely different among those two communities, which is an idea that Boas highlighted in his works. Ethical relativism is identified as cultures having no good or bad practices and beliefs, so people would not be able to make these judgments. Epistemological relativism is explained as the view that a person cannot truly understand another culture in a useful or meaningful way, which is similar to Boas’ ‘historical anthropology’ now identified as historical particularism.