Final answer:
Ruth Benedict's core goal in anthropology was to explore cultural diversity without passing judgment, aiming to understand cultures from an insider's perspective by describing various practices and beliefs and recognizing the psychological dimensions of culture. Her work, however, has been critiqued for potential biases due to her methods.
Step-by-step explanation:
Ruth Benedict, a student of Franz Boas, saw her core goal in anthropology as understanding the diversity of human cultures by describing and analyzing their different practices and beliefs. Her work focused on the concept of cultural relativism, the idea that one should understand another culture on its own terms without judging it by the standards of one's own culture. Through her research, documented in her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Benedict aimed to decode cultural patterns and unearth common personality traits within cultures, illustrating the psychological aspect of cultural behavior. While she recognized the complexity of cultures and aimed to avoid ethnocentrism, her approach to understanding the Japanese during World War II has been criticized for relying on a limited perspective.
In the broad view of anthropology, according to students of Boas like Benedict, the discipline seeks to reveal how humans everywhere craft culture to address their necessities, constructing diverse responses to challenges of survival, societal cohesion, and the pursuit of meaning. Anthropologists strive to gain an insider's perspective, or an 'emic' view, and avoid imposing their own biases and value judgments on the cultures they study.