[en] The possibility of obtaining objective knowledge has been questioned for quite a long time by epistemologists and others. In anthropology probably more than in any other discipline. The reason for this questioning has to do with the very nature of anthropology, which in many cases implies the move of the ethnographer into a culture which is usually very different from his/her own. The anthropologist has to adapt to a totally different set of values and behaviour and rebuild his/her cognitive maps. Sometimes he/she gets confused between what is his/ her own cultural system of representation and the local system he/she is studying.Throughout the history of anthropology two different stances have been in contrast. In one side those who believe that anthropology might aspire to the status of a scientific discipline according to nowadays standards of what is considered science. In the other side those who think that anthropology is, and should always be, a non-science dedicated discipline, a subjective interpretation, a sort of interpretative art suited for decoding and translating non-western cosmologies into the anthropologist's own.In the 1950s and early 1960s an important epistemological breakthrough came into place within American cultural anthropology. This was the dichotomy between emic and etic knowledge. Unfortunately the confusion and misunderstanding which later took place with the uses of that dichotomy was greater than the clarification obtained.Nevertheless, the distinction between emic and etic knowledge was never an issue to European anthropology because linguistics has never played an important role in the work of European ethnographers. This paper represents an attempt to bring the question to the fore in more modem terms and to make a reappraisal of what has been such a classical academic debate. The author considers that the all issue of the distinction between emic and etic knowledge should again be put into the agenda of present-day ethnographies.

[pt] A possibilidade de se obter conhecimento objectivo tem sido questionada desde há muito. Na antropologia, mais do que nas outras disciplinas, devido ao facto de o antropólogo estudar outras sociedades que possuem elas próprias os seus códigos de representação. Ao longo da história duas posições diferentes se têm defrontado: a dos que acreditam que a antropologia pode aspirar a ser uma ciência, respeitando os cânones daquilo que modernamente se chama ciência e a dos que entendem a antropologia como uma forma de discurso não-científico, uma forma de interpretação subjectiva, a arte de penetrar no espaço mental do "outro". Nos anos 1950-60 surgiu uma importante questão epistemológica na antropologia cultural americana, a qual, levada às últimas consequências, poderia ter contribuído para uma definição mais clara do papel da antropologia no conhecimento do comportamento humano: a dicotomia emic/etic. Infelizmente, foi maior a confusão resultante do que a clarificação obtida. Mais, na Europa, onde a antropologia só episodicamente se associou à linguística, a questão quase nem sequer entrou. Este texto é uma tentativa de reavaliar a questão, reafirmando a utilidade da distinção em termos da maneira como o antropólogo se posiciona face ao discurso que produz.