a concept known as cultural relativism. Cultures were the evolution of societies over a period oftime, and there was not right or wrong in a culture nor wastheir an inferior or a superior culture. Cultures wereseparate entities that existed solely in their own plane ofexistence. Boas also felt that each culture had its ownunique history, and that the anthropologist had aresponsibility to study that one in turn. The anthropologistcould no effectively analyze a culture without effectivelyunderstanding it from all aspects and from all sides. To be sure, Boas went against the major trends ofthought among anthropologists of the day. His rejection ofthe unilateral theory that has been proposed by Tylor wasalmost blasphemous among the intelligentsia of theanthropologists, but the strength that he had in his beliefswas enough to carry him through the complaints. Furthermore,Boas was able to bring others to a similar belief.One thing that Boas was careful to avoid in making anystatements was generalities. He wanted to avoid the use ofinductive reasoning because he did not think it was everpossible to know everything about a society. Inductivereasoning was, however, better than its counterpart,deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning allowed someone whonew a couple particulars to make a finer point or evenworse, some generalizations that would not necessarily befound following that line of thinking. Along these lines, Boas felt strongly against the ideathat race had an influence on human behavior. He did notthink that simply because a person has certain racial genesin his or her body they will behave a certain way. Boas made a point on focusing on linguistics as well,and his work in this field was quite remarkable. A largepart of this theory was the empirical knowledge gained notfrom reading books but rather from getting information froma series of field subjects. One of Boas strongest points is to get his audience torethink their position on wha...
